Other Eyes Smile Tenderly
by Zealous Iconoclast
Summary: It was the end of one of the darkest periods of his life. There was so much to forget. Somewhere in the shuffle, she was forgotten too. The story of Elsa, the Hungarian Calavicci.
1. Prologue

Note: Title ©1930, Hoagy Carmichael, from "Georgia On My Mind".

PROLOGUE

The sun was setting over the bay. In a quiet suburb of San Diego a man stood by the bole of an enormous elm tree. He was an unremarkable figure in the encroaching twilight, a little less than average height, his too-thin body dwarfed by his black turtleneck and trousers. He was shrunken in on himself, contributing further to the illusion of a child locked out of the house and left alone in the cold. He stood with his back to the street and his dark eyes focused on the charming bungalow to which the tree belonged.

Behind him in a low-slung blue Chrysler, a tall muscular man in the uniform of a Naval officer leaned over to crack open the passenger door.

"Sir?" he said. "Sir, you'll miss your flight."

The black-clad man did not seem to hear him.

"Sir?" the Marine tried again. "Lieutenant Commander Calavicci, please…"

The man squared his shoulders, drawing his body out of its abject posture, and turned his back on the little building one last time.


	2. Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

Albert Calavicci stared out the rain-soaked window as the plane touched down on the tarmac in Orlando. The first grayness of dawn filtered through the clouds. It was time to move on. He had spent twenty long months haunting Balboa Naval Hospital and the streets of San Diego like a mourning shade, a last, shattered remnant of a long-forgotten world. It had been twenty months of painful operations and excruciatingly slow recoveries and test after test after test. Twenty months of familiar faces and old haunts, and friends and colleagues trying to be kind. Twenty months of psychological torment that could have taught the Viet Cong a thing or two about cruelty.

It was over now, he reminded himself. He had a clean bill of health, even if he did still have to somehow pack another fifteen pounds onto his rail-thin frame. The doctor who had managed his case for almost two years had said thirty would be better, but there wasn't really much chance of that. Nevertheless, Al had a piece of paper certifying him fit for duty, and his reassignment orders were tucked into a pouch in his kit bag. He was bound for NASA, with a chance at piloting one of the Apollo missions, and he was going to forget.

That was priority number one: forgetting. He had to move on, or he knew he was going to go under. It had been touch-and-go those first six months, when he had hovered listlessly between life and death. He had somehow survived everything that had been thrown at him over there, and then come home to discover that his reason for holding on was gone. For four of his six years of wretched captivity he had been living for nothing, clinging desperately to a dream that was just that: a dream, a spectral and frail unreality. When he found that out it had stripped away his interest in survival. Despair more profound than any he had experienced in Vietnam consumed him. He didn't exercise, he didn't read, he ate so little that they had to keep him on a nutrient drip. He must have gone through five psychiatrists.

Then, one morning in early November, he had woken up angry. Angry at Johnson, who had escalated the war in the first place. Angry at his squadron commander for leading them into action prematurely on the day his plane had gone down. Angry. Suddenly his recovery proceeded by leaps and bounds. He began to put on weight. He drove the nurses crazy pulling out his I.V. when it hampered with his daily exercise regimen—the one he had perfected in the tiny cell at Briarpatch. Soon he was well enough for the never-ending string of corrective surgeries. The subsequent pain and immobility stunted his healing, but he bounced back as quickly as he could, and much quicker than they thought he would. He was angry, and his rage made him strong. He was angry at the VC, angry at Major Quon, and angry at himself. Especially himself. And he was angry at the bastard who had taken advantage of Beth.

Somehow when he played it out in his mind it was never Beth's fault. Gord Chaney at the Quartermaster's told it differently: how she had turned into a tramp, prancing around town in short skirts and makeup, how she had known the guy less than two and a half months before shacking up. Al didn't believe him. His version of events was closer to Caroline Downing's. Carrie had been one of Beth's best friends, and she painted a much more sympathetic picture. As the plane taxied towards the terminal Al replayed her words in his mind.

"She tried so hard to believe you would beat the odds," she had said; "but she was clutching at straws, working double shifts in the burn ward just to keep herself out of the house. She wanted to believe you were alive, but it had been two years of nothing… and then she lost a young Marine. She really thought he could make it, even though there was no way. When he died… she lost her last bit of hope, Al. She'd tried so hard, but she just couldn't hold on any longer. And she met this great guy, a lawyer, out on the Marina on April Fool's Day just after the kid died. I guess she just needed to be happy again."

Poor Beth. If only he had got word out to her somehow. If only he hadn't antagonized Quon and the other scabs so that they'd kept him off the POW lists. If only that Marine hadn't died. If only that goddamned leech hadn't been waiting in the wings, ready to pounce…

The _if onlies_ didn't matter anymore, he told himself sternly. He was going to fly a spaceship to the moon. And, God, he was going to forget.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

The apartment the Navy had set up for him was conveniently located for the motor pool guys in a small residential area just off the base, but it was inconveniently far away from anywhere Al might actually want to go. He griped about this to the Marine who had picked him up at the airport and insisted on carrying his kit bag up the three flights of stairs for him. The kid mumbled anxious apologies. Great. Another wet-nosed rookie in awe of the war record he wanted to bury deep in the not-so-distant past.

Despite his belligerence on the way up, Al realized as he closed and locked the door that he was exhausted. The eight-hour flight, the twenty-five minute drive and the seventy-stair climb had left him sore and weary. The realization angered and humiliated him. Time had been he could spend the whole day in the air—actually flying, too, not just flirting with the stewardesses—and still stay up the whole night with Chip and the guys… or more often a wild-minded girl. He was getting old.

Annoyed at the thought that he had shipped out a young man and come back an old one, Al went through to the small bedroom. He was pleasantly surprised to find that the Navy had been considerate enough to provide him with a double bed. He started to open his kit bag, wanting to unpack, but suddenly he felt far, far too tired. He stowed the meager luggage in the bottom of the closet and went into the bathroom. Hell would freeze over before he admitted he was too tired to shower.

Someone had had the sense to provide soap, shampoo, toothpaste and a new toothbrush, which saved Al going back into the other room to dig for his own toiletries. He made quick, efficient use of all four articles and six and a half minutes later he came out of the bathroom, stowed his clothes in the wicker hamper at the end of the short hallway, and crawled into bed. The soft cotton sheets settled soothingly over his bare skin.

Just before sleep overtook him, he remembered that he hadn't eaten since the layover in Phoenix at midnight. Naught, naughty Calavicci.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMW 

Cape Canaveral was at once the most intriguing and the most frustrating place Al had seen in years. There was always something to do, something new to learn… and some stupid test they wanted him to undergo.

After two weeks of being poked, pricked, prodded and evaluated by every surgeon NASA could find, buy, borrow or steal, Al was beginning to wonder why he had bothered to leave Balboa. Finally, though, he was—_again_— pronounced fit-for-active-duty-but-to-thin, and then it was on to the good stuff. Of course, after every session on the machines designed to test his equilibrium, his reflexes, his visual acuity, his problem-solving faculties or his response to G-forces there was more bloodletting, pressure-taking and general violating of his personal space, but it was easier to bear because the other proto-astronauts were subjected to the same indignities.

There had been talk, back in 1970, of canceling the last three Apollo missions and focusing NASA's efforts exclusively on Skylab. If there hadn't been a series of disastrous top-secret operations out on the Delta that year, they probably would have scrapped them. As it was, however, Congress had found itself scrabbling for ways to distract the public, and a quick infusion of cash into the ever-popular (and essentially peaceful) space program had been one of those publicity stunts. Apollo 18 had gone up, more than a little behind schedule, just over six months ago. Apollo 19 was slated for launch in May, and Apollo 20 would go up in just over a year.

How he had got this assignment Al didn't know. Most of the guys in the space program had been with it for years, eagerly awaiting their turn to go up. Yet as soon as he had expressed the most cursory interest in turning his attention towards the stars the wheels of military bureaucracy had started to turn for him. Now he had a one in three chance of being chosen, if he could just make the grade. It was an unbelievable stroke of luck: the first such luck he had had in fifteen years.

It was some compensation, too, for the suffering he had gone through as a result of one of those failed missions back in the spring of '70. Charlie had a little lady by the name of Titi, physically nothing more than an overgrown girl. One day in late '69 she had turned from a necessity-driven soldier of the sort who would sneak a guy a couple extra ounces of water when the temperature rose above a hundred and ten degrees into a black-eyed machine of vengeance—he had never found out why. Then in the spring she had gone _chieu hoi_. Except Titi was playing the double agent, and she had engineered a bum setup for a squadron of SEALs using Quon's pet captives as bait. The trap had been sprung beautifully, the only downside being the low American casualty count. Titi had made the only actual kill: the young squad commander. She had come back a hero, and as a reward Major Quon had let her…

Al tried not to think about things like that. He was in Florida again, the state where he had spent some of the best times of his life. The nightlife was almost as good as he remembered, too. He had bought a car his first week, a brilliant green Ferrari that could do zero to ninety in twenty seconds. Al didn't think he'd ever forget the look on the salesman's face when he'd come out of his office after calling the bank to confirm the cheque. Money had never been plentiful before, and even excruciatingly tight at times, but with six years' salary, _per diem, _and compensation pay waiting for him untouched, Al had come home to find himself almost embarrassingly well heeled. He'd made full wages on minimum expenses during his months in and out of hospital too, and now for the first time in his life he had all the money he wanted.

All the money he wanted, and nobody to spend it on. At least, that was how it had looked in California, but he wasn't in California anymore, and he was determined to change that aspect of his outlook, too. There was no shortage of charming and gorgeous female company, and Al hadn't spent a night alone since the first one. Of course, it was a different girl every night. Variety was the spice of life, and if there was one thing Al wasn't ready for it was settling down.


	3. Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

Al climbed out of the simulator, stretching his legs and scratching the back of his neck. Day seventeen, and they had him running programs already. That was very, very good. He was determined to get on a mission, there were only two left, and the other guys had all been around forever, which meant that he had a lot of catching up to do.

A nurse unzipped his white flight suit and started removing his electrodes while a young Air Force kid came running up with a coffee.

"Thanks, Dave," Al muttered, taking the beverage. Different branch of the service, but recognition was recognition, and Al hadn't forgotten what it felt like when a senior officer knew your first name. As he expected, the boy moved off with his head a little higher and his shoulders a little squarer. Al turned towards the Ops terminal, ignoring the nurse who was now rubbing adhesive away with a cotton swab soaked in isopropyl alcohol. "So, Nick, how'd I make out this—"

He stopped. The person in the white coat was not the young intern from USF who had been manning the station all week, including this morning when Al had got into the mock module. It was a woman. A petite, red-haired woman in her thirties, with dramatic makeup and enormous rhinestone earrings. Hot damn, she was gorgeous.

"Where's Nick Bradley?" Al asked silkily, sauntering over to lean against the console. The nurse let him go with a sigh of exasperation. "And where have you been all my life?"

"You're running two point five minutes slow," the woman said as if she hadn't heard him. Her voice was a deep contralto, and had a faint, unfamiliar accent. "When they start you on the real programs you won't stand a chance."

"What's your name, beautiful?" he asked, reaching out to stroke her cheek.

She slapped his hand away and gave him a very cold look. "Didn't you even see the lubricant warning light?"

"There was no lubricant warning li—" Al frowned, his acute memory producing an image he had not processed at the time: a yellow light blinking on at the edge of his peripheral vision, only to disappear almost as soon as he looked at it. "It went out within two seconds," he said, shrugging.

"You didn't report it. Did he, Mister Harrison?" She turned to the person manning the radio, the one who had been playing mission control. He shook his head.

"Why report it? It went away," Al said, smoothing his hair. "Come on, _bella mia, _what's your name?"

With a tight-lipped look of displeasure she extended a jewel-encrusted hand with the longest, most perfectly manicured nails Al had ever seen. "My name is Elsa Ildiko Orsós," she said as they shook. "I am one of the programmers. One of the best."

"Mmh, _Elsa_. Pretty name," Al cooed.

Elsa ignored him, continuing with a businesslike lilt at odds with her undeniably beautiful face. "Nicholas has a meeting with his preceptor, which is why I am here. It's a good thing I am, too, because it looks like he's been much too easy on you. You're never going to make the grade if you continue like this."

"Sure I'll make the grade," Al said, letting his eyes drift to the soft curve of her breasts under the lab coat. Just move that lapel a little further to the left… "I'm as good as any of the other guys."

"Navy," Elsa scoffed. "They think they know everything!" She turned a hard eye on Al. "You're never going to make it onto the roster," she said. "You'd be better off going back to your little boat."

"Flygirl, huh?" Al asked, still sounding the waters. He could almost taste the sherbet-colored lips now. "Your old man an Air Force jet jock or something?"

"I'm not married," Elsa said stiffly. Defensively?

"My condolences," Al said, his voice indicating that he was anything but sorry. This wasn't the conversation he had been expecting to have right out of that little tin can. He took his eyes briefly off of the somewhat hostile vision of loveliness and wiped away a trickle of sweat that had been running down behind his ear. He didn't much like enclosed spaces. He hadn't really realized that until he had arrived out here.

"Save your condolences for yourself: you'll need them once Control sees how you're performing—or rather, _not_ performing."

"Well, Elsa, allow me to introduce myself," Al continued smoothly, not allowing her taunt to discourage him. She was obviously playing hard-to-get. "I'm—"

"You're Albert Calvichy, the new recruit from California," Elsa said brusquely, her accent tripping over his name and blurring it into some kind of impressionistic rendition.

"They tell you about me?"

"You're a war veteran. You've been a pilot for eighteen years. Your record is almost spotless, except you seemed to have trouble with authority before 1967." She answered mechanically, like a pre-recorded message playing back on command.

"And after," Al said smugly, thinking about the way the veins in Quon's temples would stand out when it became plain that he wasn't making any progress, while at the same time suppressing any memory of what invariably followed.

"You're also arrogant, and you have far too high an opinion of yourself," Elsa finished. "Also, you're running slow in the simulator."

"I'm not running slow!" Al protested. "I was well within the time limit!"

"I'm not talking about the time limit, I'm talking about the way you measure up to the astronauts," Elsa said.

"I'm an astronaut."

"Not yet," she snorted. "And if you don't start doing better in there, you never will be."

Al grinned. He was obviously making an impression: she was trying to give him a leg up. "Maybe we could have dinner tonight and you could give me some tips on improving my time," he suggested silkily.

"You want to improve your time, try reading the flight sim manual," Elsa snapped, getting to her feet and marching away.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

The ten Apollo hopefuls were assembled in the clinic for their weekly weighing-in and checkup. The wait for the physician was just about the only time they were all together. Al was still something of an outsider. He was the only Navy man in a group of Air Force guys. Only Colonel Simmons had served in the war, which made Al's war record a bit of a pink elephant that no one wanted to think about. They were all well-muscled, blue-eyed WASPs. Most importantly, they had all been together for months, and Al was a newcomer. Nevertheless they made some effort to be friendly, and Al did his best to reciprocate.

"So, guys," he ventured during a silence. "What do you know about Orsós?"

"Or what?" Lieutenant Taggert asked vacantly.

"Orsós," Al said. "You know, _Elsa_."

Hoots and laughter filled the room, and Al chuckled and raised his eyebrows to hide his discomfiture at his exclusion from the joke.

"You think you're quite the ladies' man, that's right, Calavicci?" drawled Jacobs, a Titan of a Texan.

"Aren't all Italians?" Al asked, smirking.

There were some good-natured snickers.

"Yeah?" Jacobs said. "Well, steer clear of that one—she ain't a lady!"

The laughter redoubled.

"Seriously, Calavicci," Taggert said. "Stay away from her. Elsa Orsós is trouble."

"How so?" Al asked with a wicked, lecherous grin that had the desired effect of producing laughter on his terms for once.

"Well, for starters, she hasn't worn a bra since 1968!" Taggert chortled.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Al left the sickbay in a bad mood that had nothing to do with the conversation about the gorgeous but apparently intractable programmer. He had lost three pounds this week, and the flight surgeon had left him in no doubt as to his options. Either he had to start gaining on his own, pronto; or he had to be referred to a dietician, which would undoubtedly mean nauseatingly sweet health drinks and strange uses for eggs; or he could accept reassignment and hope the Navy took their men skinnier than NASA did.

These doctors all seemed to think it was easy to remember to eat. The truth was that Al had grown so accustomed to ignoring the snarls and gnawing of an empty stomach that he often didn't even realize he was hungry until he started reeling with inanition. Even when he did stick to the schedule laid out for him by the nutritionist at Balboa he could never eat as much as they seemed to think he should.

With the physician's ultimatum still ringing in his ears he turned down the corridor towards the cafeteria. He was determined not to wash out, and if that meant force-feeding himself, so be it.

There weren't many people here at three in the afternoon, and Al was able to walk straight through to the counter. He grinned at the young woman behind it.

"Fill 'er up, beautiful," he said, winking happily as he set down his tray. She blushed.

"Anything in particular, sir?" she asked.

Al shrugged. "I don't care. They tell me I have to eat."

She laughed a little, thinking it was a joke. She was a cute little thing with short, curly golden hair, maybe twenty-three or twenty-four.

"What's your name, honey?" he queried.

"Lauren," she answered shyly.

He tried it out, rolling it around on his tongue like fine Chianti. "Lauren," he said. "_Lauren_. I can't say I'm surprised."

"Huh?"

"A beautiful name for a beautiful woman!" Al delivered, enjoying the flush of gratification that suffused her pretty round cheeks. "You in here every day?"

She glanced at his rank pips. "Lieutenant Commander," she said conspiratorially as she filled a bowl with soup and set it on his tray; "I'm married. Lauren Taggert."

"We-ell!" Al said. "So my wingman is more than one heck of an astronaut." He paused, and she delivered the perplexed look perfectly. "He's also one heck of a lucky guy."

Lauren's smile showed every one of her perfect teeth. "There you go," she said, handing him his tray. "Enjoy, uh—"

"It's Calavicci," Al said; "but for the wife of my fellow stargazer, it's Al."

"A-Al," she said, with the hesitancy of a shy girl not used to using strange men's first names. "I am," she added, as he was about to turn away.

"Am?"

"Here every weekday," Lauren elucidated hastily, her voice trailing off.

"Well, I have a feeling we might be seeing a lot of each other, my dear," Al said, winking again and turning to look for a seat.

There were plenty of empty tables, but the one that caught his eye was at the back of the room, and had one occupant: the gorgeous redheaded programmer. He grinned as he approached. She was nursing a bowl of vegetable soup like the one of his tray, focused intently on a book. It was a paperback novel entitled Surfacing, but some woman Al had never heard of.

He set his tray down opposite hers.

"Mind if I join you?" he asked.

She looked up in surprise, and then her eyes hardened. "Is there anything I can say that will make you go away and hopefully die a horrible death?" she asked.

"Not a thing," Al told her brightly, sitting down. "Lovely weather we're having," he commented.

"We're in Florida," she said. "Did you expect, maybe, snow?" She turned back to her book.

"Is that any good?" Al asked, taking a forkful of vegetable stir-fry and tasting it. Not bad. A little bland and rubbery, but not bad. "I've never read it."

"I wouldn't expect you have," she said, once again not quite getting the words out correctly.

"So? Is it any good?"

"As if you're going to read it," Elsa scoffed.

"I might… if a lovely lady were to tell me it was worth reading!"

She slammed the book down and glared at him. "You may not realize this, but I am a professional, and I am here in my professional capacity. You wouldn't talk to Nicholas Bradley like this, and I'm not going to let you talk to me like this, either."

"Nick Bradley isn't a dazzlingly b—"

Elsa shot to her feet, her jaw working and her eyes blazing. "I'm not interested in playing this game," she said, her voice like ice. "You want a woman, go into Orlando and buy one, but when you're around me you keep your filthy male mouth to yourself."

So saying, she strode off. Al chuckled a little. Ah, the magic of women's lib. He turned his attention to his plate of institutional food, using the edge of his knife to push the rice away from the rest of his meal. Guess he should have been more particular about what the girl—Lauren, what Lauren had put on the plate after all. He took several more mouthfuls of stir-fry and then tried the soup before he noticed that Elsa had forgotten her book.


	4. Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

Al rolled over and ran his hand up the curve of the spine that lay next to him in bed. Her name was Ursula, and she was twenty… twenty-something. He couldn't remember. Maybe she hadn't said. They had both had only one thing on their minds last night. He grinned at the memory.

Slipping carefully out of bed he made his way to the bathroom. Indoor plumbing was one of the premiere achievements of modern man, as evidenced by the fact that he was still marvelling over it after twenty months of reacquaintance. There had been running water at Hoa Lo, not that he had been in any position to enjoy it, but after '67 he hadn't seen a working tap until arriving at Clark Air Force base en route to San Diego. He showered quickly and plastered his hair back into obedience.

Back in the bedroom he donned his uniform, the one that branded him as a misfit as surely as his size, coloring and accent. It was ridiculous, he told himself. The military was the military, and when the chips were down it didn't matter if the guy wiping the blood from your mouth with a strip of cloth torn from his own shirt was a grunt, a bird or a sailor. Nevertheless, whenever he wore his khakis he couldn't help feeling the other guys looked at him differently.

Ursula was still asleep, the angular curve of her white shoulder showing above the bedclothes. Al paused to admire nature's work of art, then moved through to the kitchen. He didn't feel hungry, but he knew he had to eat. The thought of the sheer amount of food in the refrigerator sent another confused pang through his chest. He had gone grocery shopping for the first time six days ago, and he had been astounded by the endless variety and choice. In San Diego there had been a midshipman taking care of that for him during his brief stints out of the hospital. Here he was finally independent, and the idea that he could chose what he ate was a little overwhelming.

Because he knew it was a good weight-gain strategy, he started to make a four-egg omelette. At least he hadn't forgotten how to cook.

When he had eaten he washed the dishes carefully, and swept the little kitchen. The apartment was spotless. You had to keep your space clean. That was one idea he hadn't acquired in captivity. He remembered sneaking out of bed to find Poppa scrubbing the kitchen floor in the middle of the night at the end of a long shift on the docks. The nuns had set a huge store by cleanliness, too. Make your bed properly, Albert. Nice sharp corners. Excellent practice for the Navy.

It was almost time to leave. Al went back into the bedroom. A city-savvy voice in the back of his head told him to hustle the girl out of here before he left, but logic reminded him there was nothing worth stealing. The Navy had provided everything in the apartment; "necessities" only—there wasn't even a television set. All he actually owned were his clothes, so unless she was going to take off with his dress whites he had nothing to fear. He hadn't saved anything from the old house. Whatever Beth hadn't taken with her had been disposed of: sold or donated to the Salvation Army. If she didn't want it, why should he?

Al bent over the bed and kissed the girl very deliberately, expunging the thought from his mind. Her eyelids fluttered.

"Ursula?" Al said. He was getting the hang of this. She smiled. "Ursula, I have to leave now. Help yourself to whatever you want, take your time. I just wanted to say thanks and good morning."

"Mmm. Good morning," she breathed drowsily.

"Right, well, g'bye then," Al said, kissing her again. She sighed contentedly and twined her arms around his neck. He reciprocated the embrace, and then eased her back into bed. She curled up with a soft exhalation of satisfaction, and he pulled the covers back over her shoulder. Then he left the apartment, pausing at the end table that held the telephone to snatch up Elsa Orsós' book.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

After a session in the centrifuge, a quick flirt with Lauren Taggert, and a mediocre lunch in the cafeteria, Al was able to head back to the simulator. To his delight, Elsa Orsós was once again manning—womaning?—the Operations panel.

"Well, good afternoon, beautiful," Al said, obediently lifting his arms so that the attending nurse could attach the belt that would transmit his vitals for scrutinization.

Elsa ignored him. Maybe she thought he was talking to the nurse. As soon as he was free of the deftly working hands he sidled up to her console. "I said good afternoon."

"It's going to be evening if you don't get into the module," Elsa said, not even looking at him. "I hope you're ready to work today."

"All work and no play makes Elsa a dull girl," Al warned.

"Stop it," she said, her voice hard and almost angry. "Get into that simulator before I start it without you."

"All right, all right," Al chuckled, raising his hands in surrender. The techs had the hatch off, and he climbed into the tiny capsule. Sealed in, he pulled on the com headpiece and fastened his seatbelt like a good boy.

She was running him through a different program, he realized about two minutes in. He grinned. Either she didn't realize this was only his fourth time in this machine, or she was trying to challenge him into a—how had she put it?—_better performance_. A snicker accidentally went over the two-way, prompting a question from the guy acting as Mission Control. Al focused on the task at hand.

After a gruelling but exhilarating ninety minutes, the hatch finally opened and Al was able to climb out. He drew in a much more frantic lungful of air than he had meant to. It was ridiculous: they kept the oxygen flow constant. It was impossible to run out of air in the simulator. Angry at his body for the weak waves of relief that were running through it, he hopped to the ground and made his way to the nurse.

"Better?" he called out to Elsa Orsós, who was making notes on a stainless-steel clipboard.

"Pathetic. You can expect my full report on Monday," she said coldly.

"C'mon, honey," Al cajoled. "Let's be friends."

"Let's pretend we can't see or hear each other," Elsa bit back, and proceeded to behave as if that was the case.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Al hit the shower, surprised and bewildered at how much he was sweating. The narrow stall seemed too small for comfort, so he finished as quickly as he could and put on his uniform again. Next to his wallet on the top shelf of his wall locker was the paperback. He tucked both articles into his pockets and went out in search of Elsa. No luck.

"Calavicci!"

Al turned to see Colonel Simmons, wearing a green flight jumper and carrying a ceramic coffee mug, trotting up the corridor behind him. He grinned in greeting.

"You done for the day?" Simmons asked.

"Just getting started," Al replied, smirking.

Simmons chuckled. "I mean, are you done _here_ for the day?"

"Looks that way," Al said.

"Oh. 'Cause a couple of the guys are heading in to Orlando to make a little noise, if you want to come."

Al couldn't quite believe his ears. They were actually making social advances?

"I dunno, Commander, I don't want to be a third wheel," Al demurred. "I know how to scare up a good time on my own."

"Aw, come on!" Simmons clapped him on the back, a little harder than was quite comfortable. " 'Bout time you started to get to know the guys. After all, you could wind up in mighty close quarters with two of 'em some day!"

"Yeah? Some people don't seem to think I've got much chance of making it," Al confided. Of all the other astronauts, Simmons was the only one who had any perspective of the appropriate limits, and he was certainly the easiest to talk to.

"Some people? You been talking to Orsós?" Al frowned, wondering how this was so self-evident. Simmons shrugged. "Word travels fast. She hasn't got a very high opinion of you. You didn't try to make a pass at her, did you?"

"Well, not in a strictly academic sense," Al hedged.

Simmons laughed. "Dammit, Calavicci, the boys tried to warn you!" he chortled. "She is _not_ the kind of woman you try that stuff on."

"In my experience there is no other kind of woman," Al quipped.

"Yeah, well, take it from me that we ain't in the sixties anymore!" Simmons said. "I gather she's your first encounter with the liberated set?"

Al wondered if this was a dig. Sure, the last couple of weeks had been his first foray onto the dating scene for almost… God, how long had it been? Since he and Beth had started to go steady. Nineteen sixty. Fifteen years. Chip had to be rolling in his grave.

"Calavicci? You okay?" Simmons asked.

Al realized he had stopped dead, mid-stride. He shrugged off the ghosts and grinned. "Sure. Great. So where are we meeting?"

"Gimme your address and somebody from the motor pool will pick you up," Simmons said. "If the golden boys of the space program want to kick back on a Friday night that isn't a problem. If we get caught D.U.I., it is."

"I'd really rather make my own way," Al hesitated.

Simmons shook his head. "You're running with a married crowd, Calavicci! The likelihood of hooking up with a lady tonight isn't great."

"You obviously don't know much about Italian charisma!" jibed Al. "Or the appeal of the seaman," he added with a wicked grin at the Air Force commander.

"Motor pool picks you up or it's a no go. Sorry, Calavicci, it's the way we do things here."

"Then I guess the motor pool picks me up," Al said good-naturedly. He liked Simmons. Good guy.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Al returned to his apartment at a quarter to one in the morning, alone. It had been a great evening: amazing what civvies and a little alcohol could do for camaraderie. After the third beer there had been none of the usual delineations of rank and classification. They had just been six astronauts having a good time together. It had been too long since Al had had that kind of experience.

The down side was this: coming home alone. It wasn't that late at night. He could go out again if he wanted, find some singles joint and make up to a pretty young thing. It _definitely_ wasn't too late to hunt down a bordello, but for some reason that idea didn't appeal. It was something of a matter of pride that he hadn't had to buy affection once since coming back to Florida, and if he could keep it that way, so much the better.

So he locked the door and went to the fridge for a glass of milk. That was one of the nine hundred condescending dietary tips in his portfolio on putting on healthy weight. A glass of whole milk right before bed. They suggested warming it up as a natural hypnotic, but the thought made Al shudder. Hot milk was for invalids and babies. Deciding that if he was going to do this he might as well do it properly, he dug into a cupboard for a package of woody, prefabricated chocolate chip cookies that he had bought more because he could than because he wanted to. Funny how many things in his pantry qualified for that award.

He went into the living room, neither drunk nor sober, and settled on the sofa, taking off his shoes and socks and unbuttoning his shirt. He had to go clothes shopping. The wardrobe that had seemed so extravagant—three whole duty uniforms, dress whites, two pairs of slacks, jeans, one black turtleneck and five shirts, each one a different bright color, not a frayed hem or a patch or a hole or a bloodstain to be found in anything—was starting to look boring. There had been some interesting developments in fashion since he had shipped out in the spring of '66. He had some catching up to do.

Al ripped open the package of cookies and tried one. Sweet but hard enough to chip a tooth on. He dipped it in the milk to soften it.

Next to the phone lay the book he still hadn't been able to return to Elsa. Surfacing, by some woman he'd never heard of. It occurred to him that he hadn't wrangled a recommendation out of the owner. What the heck. He had nothing better to do with his night. He picked it up.

There was an embossed foil bookplate inside the front cover. _Ex Libris E.I. Orsós_, it read. Al ran his finger over the raised surface, as if by doing so he could divine something about the woman who had placed it there. A programmer, she had said, one of the best. She was gorgeous, she obviously liked flashy jewellery, and she didn't like to be told how beautiful she was. Simmons had called her a liberated woman. Despite this she was sentimental enough to put bookplates in her paperbacks. Very interesting.

He turned to the first chapter and started to read.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

By an amazing stroke of luck, she was in the cafeteria again, this time busy with some kind of pasta salad and a coil notebook. Al approached cautiously, sliding into the seat across from her before speaking.

"You left this behind the other day," he said, pushing the book towards her.

She looked up, eyes blazing with hostility and only softening briefly when she saw his offering. She gathered it up into her territory possessively. "Thanks," she said coldly.

Al started sawing at his chicken breast. "We got off to the wrong start last week," he said.

"That's one way of putting it," Elsa agreed. "Did you read this?"

"I tried to," Al admitted. He tried to focus on the positives. "It's set in Canada."

"It's written by a Canadian," Elsa informed him, clearly taking him for an absolute idiot. "The world is bigger than the United States."

Oh, did he know that. He tried to keep his smile amicable. "Are you Canadian?"

She curled her lip. "Hungarian," she said proudly. Then she gave him an exasperated glare. "Why? You think only Canadians read Canadian books?"

"Of course not. I like Leacock."

"And this one? What did you think of this one?"

"I couldn't get into it," said Al, hoping she would leave it at that. He was trying to make peace, not fight with her over her morbid choice of literature.

"How far did you get?" she pressed.

"End of the first chapter."

She snorted as if she had suspected as much. "What's the matter?" she taunted. "Don't like to face the fact that there's ugliness in the world?"

She didn't realize she was baiting him. Al took a forkful of once-frozen mixed vegetables to give himself the requisite ten seconds to control his impulses.

"The world is ugly enough," he said levelly; "without reading about it in a novel."

"Hah!" she said, then muttered something to herself in a language he didn't recognize.

"Hey, as long as we're all free to enjoy the books we want to," Al said, still trying to smooth things over. "So tell me, what do lovely young Hungarian programmers do with their evenings?"

She looked at him with hatred. "American men," she said. "You are monsters. Selfish monsters, wrapped up in your own small worlds. Stay away from me."

She started to get up. Al grabbed her wrist. "Hey, hang on. I'm just trying—"

"I know what you're trying," she snarled. "You aren't the first one who's tried. You know how hard I've had to work to get here? I'm not going to throw away what I've earned by playing along with your stupid little games. Go away and leave me alone."

"Elsa—"

"_Miss Orsós_," she corrected. "I wanted it to be doctor, but Caltech doesn't like to take women into its electrical engineering graduate studies program!"

"Look—"

"By the way, here's your report from Friday's session in the simulator. Do everyone a favor and go back to the Navy where you belong." She shoved a bundle of papers into his chest and strode off, this time retaining enough presence of mind to pick up her book.

Al watched her go, trying to process what had just happened.

He knew first hand how it felt to be part Italian at a time when your country was at war with Italy. He understood how hard it was, or had been, to be black. He was all too familiar with what it was like to be hated for shape of your eyes and the flag you saluted. But it had never occurred to him before that it might be difficult to be a woman... especially a beautiful one.


	5. Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

"What do you mean, driver's exam?" Al demanded, looking down at the bored-looking woman behind the counter.

"I don't know how else to say it," she said, fiddling with her pencil. "It's a test to see how well you can drive, before we give you a Florida license."

"But I have a driver's license," Al said, slapping down the piece of identification she had just given back.

"That's a provisional California license."

"So what?"

"And it's expired."

"I realize that," Al said curtly. "That's why I'm here to apply for a Florida license."

"In order to be issued a Florida license you must present a valid license from another State in the Union, or else you must meet the criteria for issue of a license under Florida law," she recited. She dug into her top drawer and pulled out a stick of gum, which she folded into her mouth.

Al closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Look, it isn't like it's been expired very long—"

"It's expired."

"Yeah. Yesterday. Look, I'm an astronaut in the Apollo program. Yesterday I was running flight simulations from five in the morning until eleven at night. I couldn't get my license changed over then because you people haven't got an office within walking distance of the hangar."

"You could have sent someone to do it for you," she said, still not really looking at him.

"Oh, really?"

She shrugged. "No," she admitted. "But you could definitely have planned ahead and taken care of this before."

Al scratched his eyebrow with his ring fingernail. "Look, honey, I'm sorry I let it expire. I've had a lot on my plate lately. You seem like an intelligent, reasonable, beautiful person. Isn't there some way we can get around this?"

"Get around what?"

"Get me a Florida driver's license."

"Yes," she said. Al grinned. He knew it. There was always a way around sticky bureaucratic obstacles, and nine times out of ten that road was paved with flattery. The woman curled her lip and smirked. "You can take the test, and if the driver examiner finds that you meet the standards I'll issue you a Florida license."

He was starting to lose his patience. There was too little space in this tiny, crowded office, and it was hot in here. Al fumbled with the button on his collar. "For crying out loud," he said; "I haven't got time for this."

"Oh, right," she said. Sarcasm leeched the professionalism from her diction and vocabulary. "Your rocket's waiting."

Al blinked. "You don't believe I'm an astronaut," he said as realization struck.

"I wasn't born yesterday, mister." That was certainly true, Al thought unkindly. "I've seen one or two astronauts in my time, and you don't look like no astronaut." She snapped her gum.

"Really? What does an astronaut look like?" Al asked.

"Not like an extra from bad gangster movie."

Al cocked one eyebrow at her. "You know, if I was really a Mafia hitman…"

"You wouldn't be here tryin' to transfer an expired license and generally making a pain in the ass of yourself," she said.

"Is this the way you always talk to people?" Al queried sweetly.

"Only the ones who come in here making a pain in th—"

"You have any Greek ancestors?" asked Al. "Because I think maybe you've got some Harpy in your blood."

She gave him a blank look. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Maybe he could outsmart her. Or astound her with a show of authority. Maybe if he just got a little mad… That would make _him _feel better, anyway. Al dug out his wallet.

"Look," he said, placing one card after another in front of her. "NASA photo identification. United States Navy photo identification. Military pilot's license. Florida private pilot's license. You think they'll let me fly a plane and I can't drive a car? Just issue the license and let me get out of here!"

"The law's the law," the woman said; "and I ain't stickin' my neck out for _you_."

"Just let me talk to your supervisor," Al intoned, curling his lip at her through a saccharine smile.

She got indolently to her feet. "O-_kay_," she said; "but he's gonna tell you the same thing."

Al knew that was true. They weren't going to bend the law for him or for anyone else, NASA or not. It was just a pain in the neck. He had completely forgotten licences needed annual renewal. Any problems the Naval administrators had had in bringing him back from the dead and reassembling his little leather folio of identification they'd kept to themselves. It hadn't occurred to anyone to remind him about maintaining it.

"Forget it," he said, defeated. "What's involved in this test?"

To give her credit, she maintained her disinterested demeanor as she resumed her seat and took a legal-sized sheet of paper out of a drawer. "First you do the written test," she said. "You're lucky: we're doing eye exams today too, so you can get it out of the way. Then if you pass both of those you make an appointment for the driving part."

Fantastic. Al took the paper and reached across the desk to pluck a pen from a coffee mug at the woman's elbow. He gave her a thin smile, and found an empty chair near the window. He glanced at the other victims. Several nervous-looking teenagers dotted the room. There was an old woman nearby, polishing her glasses. A young couple who were probably here for plates were petting each other's hands near the Harpy's desk, murmuring contentedly. Newlyweds. Al remembered the car he and Beth had bought after the accident that had totaled the black Corvette. A little red Ford, something easier for Beth to maneuver through heavy traffic. He smiled fondly at the memory. She was one hell of a nurse and one hell of a woman, but she wasn't much of a hand behind the wheel of a powerful machine, especially not in a moment of crisis. She'd been so scared he would be angry…

A sharp pain spidared through his chest. He _had_ been angry. He'd been furious. So what if it wasn't her fault? Who cared if the pickup had run the light? She could have swerved out of the way or something! If he had been driving it wouldn't have happened! He had raged and railed until her tears of panic and contrition had changed to those of rage and she had started screaming back. It had been their first big fight. Then suddenly they were crying in each other's arms, both overcome with guilt and fright and relief. She could have been killed. She might have died. He might have lost her.

He had lost her.

No. Al straightened and tried to balance the paper on his knee. _No._ He was going to forget. He was going to move on. Florida driver's license.

The test was easy—too easy, because it wasn't quite sufficient to preoccupy him. Road regulations and street signs. He did have to wrack his brains over some of them, though. His memory wasn't what it had been.

The eye exam went without a hitch. Al prided himself on his perfect vision. Then it was time to book a drive, which meant back to the desk.

"Let's see…" The receptionist consulted her booking ledger. "I can fit you in at ten-thirty next Thursday."

"Next _Thursday_?"

She shrugged. "Best I can do. It's our busy season."

"December is your busy season?" Al asked skeptically.

"This is Florida. There isn't exactly a _bad_ time for a drive, except maybe when there's a hurricane passing." She snapped her gum again. "So next Thursday, then, Mr. Claravechie?"

"You're not even trying," Al observed dryly.

"You wanna see the schedule?" she challenged.

"I meant with my name. A four-year-old sounding out the letters could do better than that."

She rolled her eyes. "Try to imagine how little I care," she said.

"Oh, yeah, that's going to be hard," Al said sarcastically. "Now, listen, I can't wait until next Thursday. That's more than a week without a license, which considering my luck is more than enough time to get pulled over by a bad-tempered cop."

"So don't drive."

"Easy for you to say," Al muttered.

"Excuse me…" A tall, striking blonde woman slipped past Al and reached across the receptionist's desk to pick up a folder. "I'm heading home, Josie," she said, her voice tinged with weariness. "Let Jeff know I'm gone?"

"Sure," the receptionist said, smiling at the other woman. Then she looked at Al, her expression firm and bored again. "Thursday at ten-thirty, then?"

"I'm going to have to see if I can free up the time," Al said acerbically. "How long does this usually take?"

"Half an hour. Show up at least fifteen minutes early."

Al snorted and turned to go. The blonde was staring at him. He was too perturbed to take note of the fact that she was absolutely stunning. He scowled at her and started for the door.

An unexpected name stopped him dead in his tracks. "Al the Pick?" the woman said softly.

Startled, Al turned around. "Do I know you?" he asked.

A smile spread across the woman's face, dazzling despite the little gap between the two front teeth. "It is you, isn't it?" she said.

She was someone from the orphanage; she had to be if she knew that nickname, but for the life of him Al couldn't place her. She looked too young to be anyone from that chapter of his past, younger than Elsa Orsós, for sure. But she obviously recognized him.

"It's me, but who are you?" Al asked.

She laughed, suddenly self-conscious. "Oh, I wouldn't expect you to remember me," she said. "But I remember you. How have you been? What are you doing now?"

"I'm with the space program," Al replied. "Now, who _are_ you?"

"I was so young when you left, you probably don't remember me," she said, and Al realized with bemused gratification that she was blushing. She did look familiar, the more he thought about it, but it wasn't easy to try to remember somebody you hadn't seen for twenty-five years, especially since she mustn't have been more than four or five back then. "The space program? Are you working on Skylab?"

Al shook his head. "Apollo. Nothing less than the moon for me."

"Doing engineering, or—"

"Hoping to get up there, actually." She made a little gasp of amazement that prompted a pang of self-consciousness. "Not bad for a kid from the old neighborhood," Al demurred.

"I'd say not! But I always knew you were destined for greatness." Her blue eyes were glittering nostalgically.

"Oh, yeah, I'll bet," Al scoffed.

"No, really. You know, they were still telling stories about you when I got out?"

"No kidding. When was that?"

"Spring of '62."

Al whistled softly. "You're older than you look," he said. "I never would have guessed."

She flushed as if it had been a long time since she'd heard any such compliment. "That's nice of you to say," she murmured.

"It's the truth. Listen, you want to get a cup of coffee or something?" Reality kicked in and Al shot a sidelong scowl at the receptionist. "Of course, you'll have to drive, since I haven't got a license right now."

"You haven't got a license?"

Al pulled the offending card out of his wallet and showed it to her. "Let the old one expire and I'm new to the state," he said. "They can't fit me in for a test until next week."

"Is a test all you need?" the woman asked. Al nodded. She smiled. "Well, I can take you out right now," she said. "I'm one of the driving examiners."

"But you're on your way home," Al pointed out.

She shrugged. "Do you want to wait until next week?" she asked. "Please let me do it. I was in love with you, you know."

Al chuckled in disbelief.

"No, really, I was," she said. "When I was in the first grade I thought you were dreamier than Father Michaels."

They both laughed now, thinking of the young, energetic Irish priest. Al tried to do the mental arithmetic. "When you were in the first grade. Let's see, I would have been…"

"Sixteen," she admitted, blushing. "It was the year you won the Golden Gloves championship."

Al shook his head, grinning in reminiscence. "What's your name?" he asked, squinting as if by doing so he could transform her back into the little girl who was hovering on the edge of memory.

"You probably don't remember me," she warned.

"Try me," he urged.

"Ana—"

"Fefner! Ana Fefner! God, I was so jealous of you when you first came in!" Al exclaimed.

"Jealous?" Ana frowned in puzzlement.

"Yeah. You were this beautiful little baby, golden curls and glittery blue eyes. I was so sure you were going to wind up with a real family." It was just one more childhood injustice when she hadn't.

"I did," Ana said, her eyes misting a little. "Eventually."

"Yeah?"

"I got married. Three kids."

"Good for you! Boys, girls?"

"One girl, two boys. They're good kids. I just need to call Isabella to let her know I'm going to be a little late." Ana turned back towards the desk, but the receptionist waved her off.

"I'll take care of it," she drawled, sneaking a freshly appraising look at Al as if she was seeing him in a slightly different light now.

"Thanks." Ana turned back, taking a triplicate form as she went.

"Babysitter?" Al asked.

"Neighbour. Since Tim left…" Her voice cracked and a hand flew to her eyes to wipe away unexpected tears. "I'm sorry…"

"No, I am. He's a fool." Al felt a pulse of righteous anger. What kind of nozzle would walk out on a woman like Ana, not to mention his kids?

"Don't say that," Ana admonished hastily. "It was my mistake. I thought we were meant to be together forever, and obviously he didn't feel quite the same way. You know how it is."

A painful lump was growing in his throat. "Yeah," he whispered. "I know how it is."

Ana ran a finger through her curly hair. "Well, we'd better get on the road," she said. "I've got to be back by five at the latest."

"I really appreciate this," Al told her, regaining control and living in the moment again.

Ana smiled, and he could tell she was doing the same thing. "Least I could do for the man of my six-year-old dreams!" she said.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Al drummed on the steering wheel, looking out at the parking lot. Ana sat beside him with the triplicate form balanced on the door of the glove compartment, writing with practiced efficiency. The second they had got into the car she'd been all business, giving directions and scrutinizing his every move. Now he awaited her verdict.

"You have a lot of bad habits," Ana said, sitting back and looking at him. "And you're a very aggressive driver." She looked at a note affixed to his eye exam results. "Josie called the DMV in California, and they told her you hadn't held a valid license there for seven and a half years before the provisional one they issued last winter."

"Yeah, well, I've been out of the country," Al said, annoyed at the receptionist who would go the extra mile to disparage him but not to assist him.

"Ooh! Where?" Ana asked, her tone pleasant and conversational.

Al shrugged. "Vietnam."

Her face fell. "For seven and a half years?"

"Yeah. Something wrong with that?"

"It's just… I'm sorry…"

"I'm career Navy," he said, more fiercely than he had intended to. "I wasn't drafted. It was my choice to go."

"I hadn't realized that tours of duty were so long," Ana murmured.

"Yeah, well, I got a special extension," Al said, too much of his desire not to discuss this filtering through into his voice. He forced a smile. "So I have bad habits," he said, lightening his tone. "This means?"

"I should fail you," Ana said matter-of-factly. "Any kid who drove like you do would be sent off with a bug in his ear about attention to detail. However, you're not driving dangerously, just… _uniquely_. What's a couple of demerit points between fellow cast-offs? Take this through and Josie'll issue you a temporary license until they can get the real thing printed."

"You're an angel, you know that?" Al said, taking the proffered triplicate. "Why don't you let me buy you supper to thank you?"

Ana chuckled. "Are you trying to buy off your examiner?" she asked. "Anyway, I can't. I've got to get home and feed the kids."

"I like kids," Al said. "I'll take you all out for supper."

Ana shook her head. "I can't," she said sadly. "It still hurts too much. I'm just not ready to… spend time with any man, not even an old friend."

"Can I get your number?" Al asked. "Just so we can get together and talk about old times?"

"No," she said gently. "I'm glad I ran into you, but…" She gestured helplessly.

"Yeah, okay. I understand. I'm glad I ran into you, too. You've really saved my life here, you know."

She laughed again, then leaned quickly over the gearshift and kissed him firmly on the lips. Al cupped his hand around the back of her head and reciprocated instinctively. When they parted she drew back looking like a girl who has just seen her idol in the flesh. "I always wanted to try that," she confided. "The bigger girls said it was great."

"Bigger girls are notorious liars," Al said with a wicked grin.

Ana winked. "Not this time." She slid out of the car before he could stop her, and disappeared.

Al sat back, left strangely desolate by her departure. He needed to find a wild girl tonight, he decided. A real minx. Too many ghosts coming out of the woodwork today.

Suddenly the car seemed to press in around him. Panting anxiously against the lack of oxygen, he got out as quickly as he could, and went inside to claim his license.


	6. Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE

He was sick to death of cafeteria food, Al reflected as he pushed the indifferent-looking ground-beef-and-mushroom casserole around the melamine plate. The "so, fix it" voice in the back of his head told him he could always start packing a lunch. This prompted a rueful chuckle from another part of his brain. It was hard enough to prepare one meal, much less two at once. Not that he didn't like cooking. He did, always had, but the task of selecting dishes to concoct was exhausting. He simply wasn't used to choosing his own meals. It was like those early days on solids all over again, when the sight of three, even four foods all on the same tray and meant just for him had dazzled his eyes and confounded his faculties.

This mush in front of him was made no more appetizing by the knowledge that less than two years ago he would have devoured it with pathetic gratitude even if it had been stone cold and growing mould.

That last thought tore it. Al got up and crossed to the trashcan, tipping the plate's contents into the garbage.

"Shit," he murmured, staring at the consequence of his whim. Unjustly, the very thought that had prompted the gesture in the first place came back to berate and shame him for the sinful waste of meat.

He rubbed his brow and shook his head, disgusted at his momentary ingratitude.

"Lieutenant Commander Calavicci?" Lauren Taggert rounded the counter and hurried over.

"I told you, call me Al," he said, trying to collect himself and return fully to the present.

"Al." She glanced at the contents of the trashcan. "It's horrible stuff," she said apologetically. "I don't know where they dream up these nightmares."

"It's a little bland," Al admitted. He was feeling charitable so he didn't add that it was also rubbery, with little flaky lumps that really didn't belong there.

"I… could fix you a sandwich, if you'd rather have that," Lauren offered shyly. "There's turkey and lettuce and stuff. If you want."

Al favored her with a grateful smile. "My dear, I would be eternally grateful," he said.

"D'you want a tomato?" she asked, smiling back.

"Love one. You're as merciful as you are beautiful."

She flushed, her eyelashes fluttering. Then she hurried off. Al wandered over to the beverage counter and poured himself a mug of strong black coffee. The food might be some kind of purgatorial offering courtesy of Rod Serling, but the coffee bordered on damn good. As he dosed his cup liberally with Sweet'N Low Al reflected that there was probably some profound message there about NASA's priorities.

He turned back to find a seat just as Elsa Orsós entered the room. He hung back while she chose her food, then moved smoothly to intercept her as she sat.

"Mind if I join you, Els—Miss Orsós?" he asked.

She could not have looked more disbelieving if he had been standing there in a prom dress and makeup. Then moment of astonishment waned and she pursed her lips in fury.

"What are you?" she demanded. "Are you and imbecile, or a pervert, or just an intolerable jerk? How do you not understand I want nothing to do with you?""

Oh, he had got the message, all right, and he had genuinely tried to give her what she wanted, but it was no use. He saw her almost every day, and the lack of even the most rudimentary pleasantries was driving him crazy. Nature had originally planned for him to be an outgoing and gregarious person, and years of trying to undo the mistake had not succeeded. It irked him when he couldn't connect with the people around him.

"Well, unfortunately we work together," Al said, trying to communicate that he didn't think it was unfortunate, while at the same time not coming across as smug or gleeful. "I'd like to work on rebuilding our professional relationship."

"What professional relationship?" Elsa asked scornfully. However, instead of retreating to another table she began to douse her casserole with pepper. "You haven't once treated me like a professional since we met."

"And I want to apologize for that," Al said firmly. "It's just that I like to think of people as individuals—"

"Oh, so _that's _the lie you tell yourself," Elsa said. "I see. You excuse your shameless treatment of women as sex objects by saying you're thinking of them as individuals—let me guess: individuals who all just happen to want to hop into bed with you at the least invitation?"

Ouch. "Elsa, I don't think that's fair—"

"You call me Miss Orsós, I said!" she snapped. "You can't even respect a little request like that!"

"Yeah, but that's a tough habit to break," Al said, waxing defensive.

"So is leering?" She turned up her nose in an ineffably charming fashion at his look of surprise. "I see the way you look at me when you think I can't tell! Undressing me with your dirty little mind!"

Damn, she wasn't scared to say what she was thinking, was she? Well, why should he hold back, then?

"You probably don't realize it, but you're one hell of an attractive woman!" Al said. "I'm trying not to think of you as beautiful, but I'm only human—"

"No, you have a long way to go before you graduate to human!"

"Would you just put a sock in it? I'm baring my soul in contrition, here!" Al exclaimed. Elsa curled her lip in ill-controlled anger. Al took that as permission to continue. "I didn't realize that you didn't like to be told how—I didn't think you'd just want to be one of the guys—"

She gave him a look of absolute loathing, not even dignifying that remark with comment.

Al scrubbed his eyes. "Boy, am I glad I washed my feet this morning," he muttered.

"You what?" she asked, frowning. "Oh. Because they're in your mouth." The faintest twitch of amusement visited her cheek.

"Yeah, exactly," Al said, hoping that he was making some progress. "I'm sorry. Form now on it'll be astronaut and programmer. I promise."

"You're not an astronaut yet," she pointed out.

"What's your definition of an astronaut?" Al asked. And why did he have the feeling that her definition was tougher than the norm?

"Tomorrow you start crisis tests for Apollo 19," she said. "Then we'll all see."

"Crisis tests? You mean the prolonged simulations, no sleep, as many problems as they can throw at us?" Al asked.

"Precisely," Elsa said. "Then we'll see if you can be an astronaut.

Al shrugged. "Can't be tougher than 'round-the-clock evolutions," he said dismissively. As a matter of fact, he was looking forward to the challenge. If there was one thing Calavicci excelled at it was performance under pressure.

"What are—"

Elsa was cut off by the arrival of Lauren Taggert with Al's sandwiches. "There you go," she said sweetly, setting them in front of him. "I hope they taste all right."

"They look delicious," Al said, taking her plump, pretty hand and kissing it. "Just like you."

Lauren blushed a brilliant pink and withdrew hastily. Al grinned and took a bit of sandwich. It actually tasted like real food. He closed his eyes blissfully.

"She's married!" Elsa hissed furiously. "That's Lieutenant Taggert's wife!"

"So what?" Al said, swallowing and opening his eyes.

She was glaring at him with eyes like lasers. "You don't talk to a married woman like that," she said curtly.

"Being married doesn't make her any less beautiful," Al said.

"I don't care if she's the most beautiful woman on the planet. You have no right to talk to her like that!" Elsa snapped, the fragile peace dissolving. No, shattering.

"She likes it—"

"_You think_ she likes it! Maybe she things it too, but you're both wrong!"

"Hey, don't go projecting your attitudes onto other women!" Al said, jerking his index finger in admonition. "Just because you have a problem with being young and beautiful and—"

"You can't stop, can you?" she challenged, he voice afire with vindication. "You don't even know how to relate to women except in the terms of your next conquest!"

Al could tell she was really angry now, because her accent was growing thicker and her grasp of the vernacular deteriorating. Unfortunately, he was losing his reign on his own temper also.

"You have no idea how I relate to women, because you won't let me get past the initial advances!"

"_Advances_! Hah! You see? You can't treat us like human beings because you're too busy trying to get us into bed! It's contemptible when you try it with single women, but when they're _married_—"

"Hang on!" Al snapped. "I am _not_ trying to seduce Lauren! It doesn't hurt any woman to hear how pretty she is, especially not a married woman!"

"Oh, so you'll lie to her to get favors?" Elsa rejoined, gesturing at the plate of sandwiches.

"Now who's having trouble being open-minded?" Al demanded, glancing at the counter to be sure that the round little form of his colleague's wife was out of sight—and hopefully earshot. "I thought you feminists were all about defying conventional standards of beauty!"

"Oh, I'm a radical because I want to be treated like a human being, am I?" Elsa queried, as hostile as ever.

"I was _trying_ to treat you like a human being when you started attacking the way I was talking to Lauren!" Al barked.

"_Mrs. Taggert_!" Elsa corrected.

"Why shouldn't I treat her like a person instead of identifying her by her marriage?" Al through out triumphantly, feeling he had cornered her. "If I want to be on a first-name basis with the wife of a colleague—"

"Hypocrite!" decried Elsa. "You make me sick! Every word you say you prove you're just as narrow minded as the rest of your selfish countrymen!"

"If that's true, I'm certainly not the only one putting people into boxes!" Al cried. "You're being just as closed-minded about men as I am—as you claim I am about women!"

"Not all men, just men like _you_!"

They were on their feet now, though Al had no idea when they had got there, and they were squaring off over the table. The other diners were staring. Al scarcely even registered them in his conscious mind.

"Oh, I see. Men like me! Let me tell you something, sweetheart: you've never met a man like me!"

"You're _RIGHT_!" Elsa shrieked. "I've never met such an arrogant, lecherous, filthy-minded, posturing _creep_!" She spat out the last word as if it was the vilest English insult she knew.

"What a coincidence!" Al exclaimed, now completely beside himself with choler and far beyond the stage of filtering his words through the lens of a gentleman. "You're the first woman I've met who could chill a beer between her _casabas_!"

He might have got away with that, if Jacobs—who was sitting at a nearby table with a couple of the guys on Skylab—hadn't hooted his approval. Elsa's head snapped over to the crowd of sniggering astronauts, and her face went white with fury as she deduced the definition of the unfamiliar word. The slap sent Al's chin bouncing off of his shoulder.

"_Bazd meg, elfajzott_!" Elsa screamed, continuing with her accent suddenly so thick as to be almost unintelligible. "You come near me again, you _béna hapsi_, and I'll tear you up so that the crows won't find the pieces!"

There were whistles and more sniggers from the astronauts. Elsa bristled, making ready to storm away. Al, however, was determined to have the last word.

"Oh, don't go!" he snapped caustically and much louder than he needed to. "I wouldn't want to deprive all these nice people of your _charming _company!"

So saying, he swept past her and strode from the room at top speed. As he passed the door a plastic cup full of orange juice sailed after him. Only his desperation-honed ducking reflex saved him from a rather painful wetting.


	7. Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

On Al's one-month anniversary at the Cape, he went into the Lunar Excursion Module Simulator for the first time. Accompanying him was Lieutenant Taggert, who had a degree in geology, and would be as likely as anyone to be sent on the landing. Al was present in the capacity of pilot.

It was the end of a long and strenuous week of crisis testing, as Elsa had called it. Al knew he had done admirably—make that excellently. He had more experience with sleep deprivation than most men, even by military standards. The VC loved to leave you raving like a lunatic—and after they were done with you and finally let you sleep, nine times out of ten you couldn't remember what you had said to buy the luxury of slumber.

The pressure was on: in ten days' time the crew roster for Apollo 19 would be released. This was the last simulation for Al before he would be allowed to check out and head home for two days of glorious freedom—days that he was going to spend alternately in the tub and in bed.

Taggert grinned at him as the technicians sealed the hatch. "You ready?" he asked.

Al grinned enormously "You betcha," he said. With any luck, he'd be landing one of these things on the moon in five months.

There were a couple of glitches—there were always glitches—but overall the descent went smoothly. Then the two astronauts had a half-hour wait while the computers outside were being set for the return trip. Taggert sat back in his seat, flexing his fingers and yawning.

"Damn, it's been a long week," he said.

"Tell me about it," Al muttered, scrubbing his eyes with his hands. God, it was hot in here.

Elsa Orsós was out there on the board. Al wondered wryly what she'd thought of his "performance" _this_ week. He knew he'd done well, buthe couldn't blame her if she was disposed to be uncommonly critical. Their altercation in the cafeteria was already becoming a part of NASA legend, and both of them were finding it difficult to live down. It wasn't so bad once you got used to the cracks about the two of them being madly in love. Most of the astronauts had had some kind of encounter with Elsa, and Al's was simply the most dramatic. One distinct downside was that the females on staff who fell into the women's lib faction were giving him a very wide berth now. As for Elsa, he had exchanged the bare minimum of strictly work-related words with her since the incident. She was definitely _not_ worth the trouble, however incredibly gorgeous she was...

It was too hot in here. Al found he was having trouble breathing, and he undid the tether keeping him in his seat, hoping that would relieve the pressure on his lungs. Taggert looked to be catching a quick catnap, which was only fair, since the guy had been up for almost thirty hours straight. Al wished he could get up and pace around a little, but wandering the LEMS was strictly prohibited. The walls were no thicker than tin foil in places, and while there wouldn't be a problem when they were weightless, now there was always a risk of denting the simulator. In and out, the rest of the time sit still. Those were the rules.

It was such a tiny space, much smaller than the capsule. Al thought about the men on Apollo 13, who had spent three days living in this thing after shutting down the command module to conserve power and oxygen for re-entry. Three men living constantly in a space meant to carry two for a couple-hour descent. He couldn't imagine it.

Oh, wait, he _could_. He knew exactly what it must have been like, and that was the problem. A chill ran up his spine at the thought of the tiny hooch at Mai Choi that he'd shared with Fred Giocanni and young Jeff Townsend. They'd been grateful for the close quarters during the winter nights—sometimes the temperatures were way down in the thirties, and there they were in a shoddily chinked bamboo shelter, barefoot and dressed in thin, threadbare prison fatigues. The enforced huddling hadn't been such a torment then: they would have been like that anyway. When the spring came with its oppressive heat, however, the discomfort of three perspiring bodies in a five-by-five hut had been intolerable. You couldn't stretch out, you couldn't breathe properly, you could hardly move without ramming someone with your knee or your elbow or your aching, abused shoulder. It had almost been a relief to be dragged out to the tiger cage just to get a little fresh air, and Al knew the other men had been glad to see him go. Not that they wanted him to roast in the sun, unable to stand or sit, poked and prodded and tormented, put on half-rations and deprived of water, but those inches freed up when he wasn't in the hovel were precious. Wonderful thing, enduring that kind of torture knowing your compatriots would be sorry when it was over. That was the whole idea, of course. Divide, demoralize, and conquer.

Al tried to remind himself that this was different. No one was touching him. All he could smell was the faint metallic odor of the consoles. It wasn't that hot in here…

Except it was. It _was_ that hot in here, and he couldn't even undo the zipper on his flight suit. Trying to distract himself he set about memorizing the switches in front of him, struggling not to think of the tiny black isolation cells that seemed to press in on you, the walls getting closer and closer, the space you were already crammed into getting narrower and narrower, the roof falling with excruciating slowness…

"LEMS, stand by for takeoff," Cap Com said. Al fumbled with his harness. He didn't want to tie himself back down: he couldn't breathe properly as it was. He did it anyway, though, and then blinked the sweat out of his eyes and switched on his microphone.

"LEMS here, acknowledge Cap Com. Standing by." The ropes, too. They would bind you up so tightly that you felt like you were encased in a casket of hemp. Then they'd leave you in the dark. You couldn't move, and with broken ribs you couldn't breathe.

"LEMS, this is Apollo," Simmons' voice cut in. It was starting. "Capsule on trajectory. You are clear to ascend."

Al nodded, trying to stay focused on the moment. "We read you, Apollo.

"Engaging thrusters," Taggert said. "Ignition."

"Lift-off in five," Al said. "Four. Three. Two. We are airborne, Apollo, repeat, we are airborne."

"I read you, LEMS," Simmons said. "Cap Com confirm docking trajectories."

"Confirming," Cap Com complied. The simulator began to hum and shudder.

"I'm getting a red light," Taggert said calmly. "Repeat: red light on starboard thrusters."

"Cap Com, confirm a red light on starboard thrusters?"

Al craned his neck to see the red light beyond Taggert. What was it? Which one was it? It was hard to think when you couldn't breathe. God, it was hot in here. There wasn't enough room to breathe in here, not in this heat.

"Confirm red light, Apollo," Cap Com intoned in a factual voice. "Lunar excursion module drifting two degrees to port. Three degrees."

"LEMS, you've got drift," Simmons said.

Drift. The word hit home. It was the pilot's job to compensate for drift. Al reached for the control stick. "Attempting to compensate," he rasped, his voice catching on the back of his throat.

Taggert looked at him and cupped a hand over his microphone. "You okay, Calavicci?" he mouthed.

"Fine," Al said tersely. "Keep an eye on those lights." He tried to swallow, but his larynx was full of mucus. He couldn't swallow and he couldn't breathe. Oh, God…

He closed his eyes and tried to get a sense of the movement of the ship. They were drifting to port, so he had to bank to starboard… but how far? The module wasn't actually going anywhere. He couldn't feel it. All he could feel was the pressure on the back of his neck, where the tin-foil-thin walls were pressing in on him…

"Starboard thrusters firing too fast, LEMS," Cap Com said in an exasperated voice.

"Compensating," Taggert said. "Calavicci! Help me compensate!"

"Compensating," Al echoed hoarsely. He drew in a shallow, gasping breath. There was no air in here. He was suffocating. Drowning.

"That's a no, LEMS," Cap Com said. "Compensation ineffective. Recommend you attempt to shut down the thrusters."

"We shut them down, we won't be able to light them up again, Cap Com," Taggert was saying warily.

"You don't shut them down and you're going to miss the capsule entirely."

Al had to get out of here. He had to. He couldn't breath. He was going to die. There wasn't enough space in here. He had to get out. He had to get out.

Another voice in the back of his mind protested that he had to focus on the mission. He had to dock with Apollo. If he didn't, they were going to shoot off into space. They would float forever and ever, until they ran out of air.

Ran out of air… they were running out of air! He tried to breathe faster, to suck in as much oxygen as he could before it was gone, but the walls were pressing in all around him, constricting his limbs and crushing his chest. Just like the tiger cage. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. It was so hot in here!

The blood was pounding in his eyes, and his eyes were full of black spots. He was dimly aware of someone yelling, "Abort the mission! Abort!". There was a siren sounding. Then the lights went out.

"No!" he screamed, thrashing and struggling against the ever-shrinking confinement. "NO!"

There was a hiss: air moving! Someone was yanking on his restraints. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. His knee struck something hard and pain-rendering. They were pulling on his arms, his mangled arms. Couldn't they leave him alone? Couldn't they pull him out of this cage? Didn't they realize he was suffocating?

His lungs burned and his stomach spasmed as he drew sharp, panicked wheezes of the painfully hot air. The walls… the walls…

"Let go and give him some room!" An imperious voice cut through his alarm and confusion. It was a strange voice, too deep for a woman's, too high for a man's, and oddly accented. "Back off, leave him alone! Doctor Vaughner!"

"What the hell…"

"He's clawing at his neck…"

"Flight suit too tight?"

"Calavicci, settle down. Come on, deep breath," a deep, vaguely familiar voice intoned.

Al heard the words, and knew what he had to do to follow through, but his efforts to stave off the paroxysms of alarm that were wracking his chest only worsened his painful gasps.

"Calavicci!" the voice repeated. "Calavicci! It's all right! Settle down!"

Al couldn't. He couldn't. The walls were closing in. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. His shoulders heaved spastically.

"Stop this! Stop it!" the strong voice commanded. Someone was pulling on his arm, forcing him to sit up. Al tried to struggle, but he was too busy fighting for air. Then his head cracked to the side as an open palm struck his cheek. He drew in a deep, startled gasp, and was astounded to find that his lungs filled with cool air. He exhaled as quickly as he could and drew in another enormous, frantic breath.

"Slow down, sailor; easy does it," the first voice said. A strong hand settled on Al's back. "Here, help me with this."

Al clutched his stomach and forced his breathing to level out. A sharp-nailed hand was fumbling with the zipper on his flight suit. Suddenly the garment was opened to his waist, and now he really could breathe. After a couple inhalations his vision began to clear.

"Like that?" Elsa Orsós said. She was kneeling in front of him.

Al realized with a pang of mortification that he was on the floor, in the middle of the hangar, with a dozen people standing around staring at him like he'd had a seizure. He tried to remember what had happened. That tiny little module… His heart was still hammering against his chest. Doctor Wagner, the flight surgeon who had been monitoring their vitals, was crouched next to him, groping on his neck for a pulse.

"Come on, Calavicci," Simmons said, stepping forward to help the physician drag the shaking Naval officer to his feet. Al stumbled to the vacant chair at Elsa's station, clutching to the edge of the console. He tried to tell himself that there was nothing to panic about.

He buried his face in his hands. God, _what_ had just happened?

"What the hell was that?" the supervising Captain demanded. "Calavicci? Calavicci, are you all right?"

"Aye-aye, sir," Al mumbled. He tried to sit up straighter. His dog tags flapped against his sternum. He instinctively tried to pull the two halves of his flight suit together over his bare chest. Doctor Wagner had his bag and was taking out his stethoscope.

"Perspiration, panic, hyperventilation," the physician said, probing at Al's chest with the cold metal disk. "You're heartrate must be well over a hundred. Somebody get a glass of water! Any history of spells like this?"

Al shook his head. He was nauseated with humiliation. He could tell by the alarm on the faces around him that whatever had just happened, it had been quite the spectacle.

"Here, drink this," Wagner said, holding a glass to his lips. Al raised a trembling hand to take it. He wasn't an invalid. He could drink a lousy cup of water.

He spilled some onto his chest and hissed, but managed to get most of the liquid into his mouth. He coughed. "I'm fine," he said tersely. "We've got to finish the simulation."

"Not until I give you a full check-up," Wagner said as he pushed up one of Al's eyelids and squinted at his pupil.

"Nothing wrong with me," Al protested. "I've got two separate fit-for-duty certifications."

Wagner frowned. "I know you do, and I didn't say there was anything wrong physically," he said. "Looks to me like you had a panic attack."

Al felt his cheeks burning. He couldn't deny it: that was certainly what it had felt like. He knew a thing or two about panic, but he'd never had anything quite like that before. "I couldn't breathe," he whispered.

Wagner nodded. "Pressure on your lungs?"

"Yeah…"

"Walls clo—"

"Shouldn't you do this in the sickbay?" Elsa demanded abruptly. "I can't reset the simulator with this piece of sea surplus in my chair!"

Wagner looked around at the assembled audience. "Right. Come on, Calavicci." He got to his feet and held out a hand for Al to take. He didn't. With an enormous effort he rose on his own.

"Need a hand?" Taggert asked, his eyebrows furrowed in genuine concern.

"Hell, no," Al said, putting on a false smile. "Under control."

He squared his shoulders and raised his head, refusing to give in to the humiliation that was threatening to swallow him. He followed Wagner out of the hangar and down towards the infirmary.


	8. Chapter Seven

Note: A huge thank-you to the intrepid PippinDuck, who helped me work out a very serious snag in Chapter One, and heavily influenced the NASA subplot from this point on. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude here.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The hangar was empty, as well it should be at six o'clock on a Saturday morning. Al closed the door carefully behind him and stepped forward, past the control consoles and towards the spidar-like LEMS. He stared at it. From here it didn't seem anything like threatening. It looked like a challenge. It looked like the future. Why, then, had he melted down like that?

Doctor Wagner had given him a thorough checking-over, and then one of the psychiatrists had sunk his meathooks into the specimen. Al shuddered at the recollection of _that_ session. Sick and twisted people, shrinks. In the end, however, even Al hadn't been able to dispute the diagnosis.

He was claustrophobic. Confined spaces brought on fits of panic. Cars, closets, shower stalls, space capsules. Presumably even cockpits.

Al felt himself trembling. They might as well have told him they were going to amputate both his legs at the hip. Flying was his life. It was the only thing he cared about, except maybe making love to a beautiful woman. It was the only thing he still had to live for, and now they told him that whenever he entered an enclosed space he would be in danger of having a spell like the one he'd had yesterday. It was devastating.

What shamed and galled him even more than the humiliation of his performance in front of the other astronauts and the simulator crew yesterday was the shattering knowledge that Major Quon had won. He hadn't been able to lick him over there. The unending torture, the near-starvation and the perpetual degradation hadn't done it, but years of confinement in tiger cages and tiny bamboo hovels and deep, narrow pits had taken their toll in the end. Now any small, hot and enclosed space brought back the memories of terror and desperation, and with that panic and absolutely inability to function. Quon hadn't been able to turn him into a slave or a sycophant as he had wanted, but in the end he had stripped away everything Al cared about. He had lost Beth, who had never heard that he had survived the crash because Quon had never let the North Vietnamese government list him as a prisoner. Now he couldn't fly because of Quon's creative methods of incarceration.

Doctor Wagner had done his best to cushion the news. Al had been overtired yesterday, at the end of a week of strenuous simulations and sleep deprivation. It could even be that he had been having hallucinations. Maybe it would never happen again. Al knew better. Now that he thought back he could recall dozens of spells over the last two years: moments of anxiety, the feeling that he couldn't breathe, the haste to move to a larger space.

A shudder of despair ran through him. There had only been three terrors that had held him prisoner in Vietnam, if you didn't count the constant and very rational fear of the next torture session. He had been afraid that he would die out there, deep in that godforsaken jungle, and that no one would ever know the truth about what had happened to him. That one had, in the end, come to nothing. Then there was the dread that he would come home to find Beth gone. He couldn't even think about that. The last nightmare was that the neverending stresses placed on his sanity would one day prove too much, and he would lose his fragile grip on reality. And in the end that, too, had come to pass.

The LEMS blurred and faltered before his eyes. He pressed the palm of his left hand to his mouth to fight against the nausea rising in his throat. It had finally happened. He had lost his mind.

MWMWMWWMWMWMWMWM 

After a weekend of frantic distraction that would have put the old days with Dave Heeley and the other like-minded cadets to shame, Al reported for duty on Monday morning far less rested than he had intended to. He checked his roster for the day, and his heart sank as his fear was confirmed. They had wiped it clean. They weren't going to trust him in any simulators: his performance on Friday had seen to that. The dread that had tormented him in every vacant minute since the attack returned full force. If he couldn't stand enclosed spaces, then he was useless. He couldn't go into space. He couldn't fly. He wasn't even fit for the drudgery of sea duty.

They had pencilled him in for an oh-nine-hundred meeting with Yardley.

John Yardley was the Associate Administrator for Space Flight. Al had only met him once, when he had reported on the first day. He was more involved with Skylab and the development of the Shuttle than he was with the Apollo program, but apparently astronauts with a few screws loose were his problem, too. Al stood outside his office, sweaty-palmed and giddy with apprehension. He knew what was coming. They had never wanted him for the space program. Everyone from Elsa Orsós and her acerbic tongue to the flight surgeons with their unrealistic weight-gain goals wanted him out. His collapse into dysfunction and terror had given them the excuse they needed to cut him.

Finally, he was ushered through. The middle-aged man with graying hair and thick, dark-rimmed glasses behind the desk looked up, his expression grave and businesslike.

"Calavicci," he said. "Good morning."

"Good morning, sir," Al replied.

"Please have a seat." He drew a manila folder out of his desk drawer and glanced at its contents.

Al sat, less than reassured.

At least the older man had the decency to look him in the eyes as he spoke. "You've caused us a lot of trouble this weekend," he said. "We've all been doing some pretty heavy soul-searching."

Al didn't trust himself to comment.

"Calavicci," Yardley said; "I want you to know that your progress over the last month has been excellent. You've shown an extraordinary capacity for adaptation, and I'm sure I don't need to tell you that you were our top performer last week, before that last simulation."

"With all due respect, sir, I doubt that."

Yardley frowned. "I never lie, Calavicci. If I say you were the best, you were the best. I've never seen a man function that well on so little sleep."

Until his meltdown of nuclear proportions.

"You have excellent technical skills, and you seem very capable of functioning as a part of a team. You need to work on communicating seemingly inconsequential anomalies, but that's a natural by-product of being a pilot. It's something most of our astronauts struggle with at the beginning. On the whole you are an excellent candidate for this program."

Al had to bite back a bitter laugh. The hell he was.

"I'm going to be honest with you, here," Yardley said; "and I need to trust you to keep what I'm about to say strictly to yourself."

"Aye-aye, sir," Al said, noting the flicker of bemusement that flitted across the civilian's face.

"Good. The roster for Apollo 19 has just been finalized. In fact, we had it ready on Thursday night, but Friday's events necessitated an alteration." Yardley folded his hands on top of his blotter. "Calavicci, I wanted you on this mission. Congress wanted you on this mission. Admiral Holloway wanted you on this mission."

"Admiral Holloway?" Al echoed, his disbelief overriding his grim resignation. The Chief of Naval Operations wanted him on Apollo 19? Like hell.

"He's been more involved in your reassignment than you might think," Yardley said. "He was very eager to see you go up in May. We were all hoping that you would prove yourself up to the task, and during last week's crisis training you did."

Here it comes, Al thought. He braced himself, determined not to show any of the desolation he was feeling.

"But we can't put a claustrophobic man into space, Calavicci. I'm sorry. We just can't."

Al couldn't help it. He closed his eyes.

Yardley went on with explanations. "It would be unforgivably irresponsible. Even if you didn't endanger the mission or your crewmates as you would have done if you had actually been in space on Friday, it is unethical for us to subject you to that kind of torture for eight days."

The word "torture" sent a shiver of misery down Al's spine. "I understand, sir," he said, with enormous effort.

"Good," Yardley said. "Now, I understand that you won't want to come to a decision about your future right away, and I want you to know that nobody is going to force your hand. We're more than willing to keep you on the payroll for as long as it takes for you to consider your options. You haven't done anything wrong, and there aren't going to be any disciplinary actions. It's simply that you're medically unfit for the kind of service you've been assigned to."

Al felt his head moving in a nod, but he had no control over it.

Yardley's expression softened from one of businesslike regret to one of genuine sympathy. "God knows I'm sorry, Calavicci," he said kindly.

"Yeah," Al said, his voice rasping as he got to his feet. "Me too."

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWWM 

New-forged habits were surprisingly strong, and Al found himself at the door to the cafeteria before he realized where he was going. He halted. He was out of the space program, he thought bitterly. There was no reason to force himself to eat. He didn't need to bother with maintaining his weight anymore.

He recognized the vacuum in the center of his chest, the one that made it feel as if his ribs were going to implode. He knew this sense of profound weariness, too. Despair. The all-too-familiar feeling that there was nothing left to live for.

Not sure were he was going, but certain that he had to get away from here, Al wandered out of the building. It was overcast today, the sky oddly evocative of his own internal landscape. The activity on the asphalt was a burden on his senses. He made his way past the animal-testing laboratories towards the gravel road leading to the perimeter of the compound, his Navy-issue boots scuffling against the ground as he failed time and again to lift his feet.

There was green space here, not pretty, but open. It was undeniably easier to breathe near the chain-link fence, with the broad, cloudy sky above him. The day was cool, and Al was grateful for small mercies.

There was a narrow, grungy lake along the berm that the fence was set on. Al had wandered past it a couple of times before, when he had felt the need for fresh air and freedom. A broad steel pipe spanned the length of the lake like a perilous bridge. It occurred to him now that it would feel good to sit out there, suspended between sky and water, and he stepped carefully onto the pipe. For a second he had to sway from side to side with arms extended to keep his balance, but then he acclimatized himself to the rounded surface under his boots, and stepped out, carefully placing one foot in front of the other as he moved towards the center of the pipe.

He sat carefully, his legs dangling over the murky water and his hands splayed on either side of his hips, pressing on the pipe for support. He curved his spine forward until he was satisfied that he wasn't about to fall in. Falling in would be terrible: he knew how to swim.

He wasn't sure how long he sat there, but it was long enough for his feet to grow heavy as the blood slowly pooled in them, unable to return properly through the vena cava constricted by the pressure of his buttocks on the pipe. His hands were cold, too, and his back began to ache. He was just contemplating returning to land when an exasperated voice cut through the air.

"_A fene egye meg!_" it exclaimed. "So much for my plans for aquiet lunch!"

Al turned his head. On the bank, hands on her hips and a satchel slung over her shoulder, was Elsa Orsós. Lovely.

"Go ahead and have your quiet lunch," he called back. "I'm not in the mood to talk."

"What are you in the mood for?" she shouted. "Sulking?"

"I'm not sulking," Al muttered.

"The heck you say!" She set down her satchel on the sandy edge of the lake. "Sitting out there feeling sorry for yourself. Serves you right!"

"Serves me right for what?" Al demanded. If she wasn't going to go away the least he could do was put up a good fight.

"I told you, you didn't have what it took to be an astronaut! Now you sit out there and you prove it!" Elsa called, tossing her head so that her red hair rippled and her earrings shook.

"Yeah, good for you. You were right. Now leave me alone."

She laughed haughtily. "You're pathetic!" she said. "Pathetic and stupid. You think I'm talking about your little show on Friday?"

What else could she be talking about? Al glared blackly at her. "Why don't you go find someone else to snack on?"

"Because you're an easy kill," Elsa retorted. "Are you going to get off of that pipe, or will I have to go out there after you?"

Al looked sceptically at her sensible black pumps. The walk had been tricky enough in boots. She'd never make it in heels.

Seeing the direction of his gaze, Elsa scoffed. She slid out of her shoes and rolled down her knee-high nylons, slipping them off and tucking them into her satchel. Then with all the affect of a soldier marching into battle, she crossed the sand bar and mounted the pipe.

Her agility was embarrassing as Al recalled his own efforts to keep upright. She tripped along the pipe without so much as a pause, and sat next to him, straddling the metal cylinder and smoothing her skirt to compensate for the awkward position. Her hands returned to her hips.

"So what do you think you're doing?" she demanded.

"I _was_ sitting here enjoying the solitude," Al said sourly.

"Hah! Enjoying, sure." She swung her legs and crossed her arms over her chest, studying his face in mild disgust. "Tell me, Albert Calvichy, why are you giving up?"

"I'm not giving up," snapped Al. "Yardley's done the giving up for me."

"Oh, he's holding a gun to your head and making you wash out?" Elsa demanded.

"Who said I was leaving?"

"Who wiped your duty roster? You were supposed to be in the capsule this morning."

"Yeah, well, obviously I'm not capable of doing that," Al muttered, turning his head away to stare at the fence.

"Why? Because little spaces frighten you?" she taunted.

He turned back, eyes flashing. "I'm not afraid of anything!" he snapped.

"Well, then, deal with it," Elsa said coldly. "Or quit and walk away, but remember nobody did it to you but yourself."

"What are you, a programmer or a psychologist?"

"It's the same thing," she said, curling her lips. "You tell the computer what it should think, or you tell people what they do think. I knew you didn't have what it took. There's no place in the space program for people who give up so easy."

"You have no idea what it's like," Al said, his mouth working faster than his brain or his pride. "I couldn't breathe!"

She shook her head and looked at him in contempt. "How did you make it through the war?" she demanded. "Stupid luck?"

"Dumb," he corrected. Then he realized what she had just said. "What the hell do you know about the war?" he demanded warily

Elsa laughed a little. "How hard do you think it is for me to get into your records?" she asked. "I know everything. What I don't know is what happened to the person in those files. Look at you, letting your own mind take you over, and you just sit here feeling sorry for yourself."

"Mind your own damned business," Al snarled.

Elsa got nimbly to her feet. "I knew it," she said scornfully. "I knew you would never be an astronaut."

So saying, she skipped down the pipe, stepped back into her shoes, and strode away. Al watched her go, his chest heaving with bewildered and yet indignant rage. So he was a quitter, was he? He didn't have what it took, did he? Well, he was going to show her. He was stronger than this, and he wasn't going to give up so easily.

He scowled fiercely as he got to his feet, shuffled down the pipe to shore, and took off at a dogtrot for the infirmary wing.


	9. Chapter Eight

CHAPTER EIGHT

Elsa Orsós had been born on the banks of the Danube on a snowy night in January of 1941, just a few days after her country signed of the Treaty of Eternal Friendship between with Yugoslavia. Her father was a barrister, and her mother had three small children to raise. And almost before Elsa could crawl her nation was embroiled in the war that was ripping through the world with sundering force. By the time she was starting school the Reconstruction was in full force, and the Hungarian Communist Party gaining momentum.

The turmoil that had rocked Eastern Europe all through Elsa's childhood had hardly touched her, at least after the guns had ceased to fire and bring with them waking nightmares. Love compensated for poverty, and the abundance of affection in her large extended family more than sheltered her from the political uproar raging around her. She was an intelligent girl, and did well in school, and she dreamed of becoming a doctor.

Universities in Communist Europe were not easily accessible to lower-middle class women, however, and Elsa stood little chance of realizing her dreams. Yet her parents were determined that their daughter should succeed as well as their sons. When Elsa was twelve they found a tutor to teach her English, and somehow her father had raised enough money to send her to the United States. There, he promised, she would have the freedom to study what she wanted to and to be whatever she wished to be. The emigration had not been easy, but Elsa escaped just before the tensions escalated to very nearly disastrous levels, and she had found herself enrolled in the pre-med program at Columbia University in New York City.

She had been just nineteen when she had left her family behind, and those early years had been difficult as she struggled to support herself, to succeed in school, and to cope with the loneliness of sudden solitude in a strange country. Her books were her dearest friends. She could read French as well as English and Hungarian, and she sped through classics in each of her three languages. Her English vocabulary was influenced accordingly, so that her accented tongue acquired a formal lilt that gave her trouble among her fellow students but impressed the faculty with a sense of her professionalism. Elsa became an American citizen, and soon she was on a full scholarship at Columbia, bound for the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

That same summer, however, she had taken an elective in electronic engineering, and all thoughts of becoming a doctor had fled. There was nothing more captivating than the workings of these radical new machines. Elsa turned down the scholarship and threw herself into the world of this new science. She transferred from pre-med to pure science, and as soon as she had her bachelors' degree she made her way across the unthinkably enormous country to the California Institute of Technology, where some of the most advanced research into the potential and applications of electronics was taking place.

In California, Elsa discovered a new obstacle. Women interested in medicine were perhaps not as common as they might have been, but they were generally accepted. Women interested in computers and jet propulsion were not. She had to endure slights and disparagement from her fellow students, from the faculty, and indeed from everyone else who learned what she was studying. Had it not been for the letters from home, Elsa would never have survived that first year on the west coast. In her first summer in California she had discovered the budding feminist movement, an underground of young women tired of the roles being forced upon them by a male-dominated society. At last she had a social network again, and she thrived within it. They gave her words to express her frustration at the country that was supposed to be free, but was not.

After failing to "qualify" for graduate studies, Elsa turned her attentions elsewhere, and found her way onto the payroll at NASA. She had been with them now for six years, and she had not lied to Calavicci when she had said she was one of the best programmers they had.

Calavicci. As Elsa strode away from the perimeter fence and back to the Apollo simulation hangar she thought about him. A dirty-minded, odious little man, cocky, overconfident, andtoo wrapped up in his own sense of self to bother with the thoughts and feelings of others. She wasn't fooled by his charm—his dago charm, they would have said in New York. He was exactly the kind of man who had been holding her back all of these years.

Yet he _was_ charming. When he looked at you and told you you were gorgeous you couldn't help but believe him…

Which was worst of all! If you thought of yourself as sexually attractive, if you thought of yourself as beguiling and feminine, you were doing the men's work for them. You had to be cold and in control, or they would never accept you as a professional.

She knew that Calavicci was just like all the others, but she had thought that he was stronger than this. His attack in the LEMS on Friday had been unexpected and terrible to watch, but not as unexpected as the despondency and defeat that had resounded through his biting retorts just now. He was quitting. He was giving up. Elsa couldn't say why, but that grieved and angered her. After the screaming match in the cafeteria last week she had looked through his files, and she knew what he had survived. It was hard to watch him giving in to the specters of his own mind without even trying to fight back.

She would never admit that she felt this way, but it was nothing less than a tragedy.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Al stood in the middle of his bedroom. He didn't know what made him feel less sane: what he was about to do, or the terror that closed upon his heart at the thought of doing it. He glanced at the nightstand, on which he had set the jot-notes he had taken during the ten-minute session he had just had with the shrink who had proclaimed him unfit for spaceflight. The psychiatrist had wanted to sign him up for therapy sessions, but there wasn't a chance in hell of that happening. Al had had his fill of psychologists at Balboa. If he wasn't crazy, he didn't need an alienist. If he _was_ crazy, he didn't want anybody to know.

And this way if he didn't succeed the only one who would be aware of the ignominy of defeat would be himself.

He bent and removed his shoes, setting them neatly under the bed. Then he picked up the bottle of water and the cup that he had brought with him from the kitchen, switched off the bedroom light and stepped into the closet.

It took some fumbling to drag the louvered doors closed from the inside, but he managed it. He was alone in the narrow darkness. Taking a slow, deep breath, Al sank to his knees, then sat with his back to the wall and his toes pointing down the length of the closet. The carpeting was soft and warm. In fact, the whole closet was warm. He hugged his knees to his chest and rested his chin upon them, his mind running through lists of truths in an attempt to maintain serenity. This wasn't a hole deep in the jungle. It wasn't a dark hooch equipped with manacles and ankle stocks. This was his closet in his bedroom in the apartment just off of the base at Cape Canaveral. His uniforms were brushing against his head, and beyond them were his newly acquired polyester shirts, brilliantly colored with artificial dyes. He was safe here. Any time he wanted, he could get out.

Why, then, _why_ was his chest constricting, and his heart pounding in his chest, and his mind protesting that he had to get out of here?

He tried to pour himself a little water. There was water in here. It couldn't be a dangerous place if there was water. Quon didn't give you water when you were being "punished"—not until he was afraid you were going to die of dehydration, and then it would be dirty; boiled so that it wouldn't make you seriously ill (a nicety the VC only bothered with when they were afraid you would croak), but intentionally befouled with sand or mud or crumbled bits of sulphur as a petty degradation. If there was water here, clear water, then there was nothing to be afraid of.

His hands were shaking so badly that he spilled the cool fluid all over the floor, soaking his socks. Socks. His mind siezed upon the word. Quon didn't let his prisoners have socks. They weren't allowed in the Hilton either. In Briarpatch in winter the camp commander had issued them, but only to his favorites and sometimes the very sick. That kid from Arkansas with pneumonia, they'd given him socks. He needed penicillin, but instead they gave him socks, so his feet wouldn't be cold on the road to the afterlife. He had drowned on dry land, strangled by his own lungs. Unable to breathe.

Al couldn't breathe. He couldn't. He felt the sweat beading on his forehead and soaking his shirt. He fumbled with the buttons and pulled the garment off, tossing it away into the opposite corner of the closet. The wet socks were constricting his feet, and he peeled them down over his toes, too. For a minute that helped. There was less pressure now. He felt like he had been in here for hours.

His throat was dry. It was dark in here. At Hoa Lo the darkness was a blessing. They couldn't do anything really terrible to you without a little light to see by. Unless they bound you up in impossible positions and left you alone without light to think about your _bad attitude_.

He could hear Thumbscrew's broken English now. "You black criminal. You duped by corporate villains of Wall Street. Confess bad crimes. Ask we forgive. Peace-loving people of Vietnam forgive black Air Pirate."

It was hot in here. This space was too small for a man. Al bit his lip and tried to keep his breath even. He was stronger than this.

The pain of the broken collarbone, the dislocated shoulder, the cracked wrist and sprained ankle, bruised ribs and God only knew how many other injuries, all not merely neglected but aggravated and in some cases even caused by his captors, hadn't been enough to cow Bingo. Delirious with agony though he was, he had croaked out the mandatory chant. Name, rank, serial number, birth date. Thumbscrew had struck him with a closed fist. Bingo had spat, more blood and bile than actual saliva. They hadn't given him his water ration that day, and his mouth was so dry…

They had left him there, in the dark. With the dirty rag rammed into his mouth he couldn't scream. His nostrils were caked with blood and breathing was difficult. The agony of the ropes and the weight of his not-yet-malnourished body on battered limbs had been beyond comprehension. And the darkness, as he hung against the wall, was a blanket of oppression, enveloping him as completely as the pain.

The darkness... Al knew he was breathing too quickly. His head felt light with hypoxia. The pressure on his chest prevented him from inhaling any deeper.

With trembling hands he brought the water bottle to his lips, but they were quivering so badly that most of the fluid ran down his chin and landed on his bare chest. The feeling of being half-naked was familiar, too. It made him feel instantly filthy, as if he could sense the dirt again, the grime that he had worn like a second skin for so long.

No! He was clean. He was safe. The walls weren't closing in: that was just his imagination. He could breathe. If he just tried hard enough, he would be able to breathe.

That was all a lie, he realized with despair. He was going to die in here. He was going to suffocate, and the walls would crush him into a mangled lump of flesh. Unidentifiable. Beth would never know what had happened to him… Beth was gone! She was gone!

He hammered on the door, screaming at them to let him out. There was no room in here. He couldn't breathe. Soon he wouldn't be able to move. He screamed and screamed, sucking in shallow, hasty mouthfuls of air between the exclamations, but of course no one came to let him out.

Somehow a fleeting shadow of rationality seized control over his limbs and he hauled the door open, just far enough to allow his slight frame through the gap. He crawled out, trembling and hyperventilating, and dragged himself on hands and knees as far from the closet as he could. His limbs shook and his chest heaved. He lay on the floor, gasping for air and trying desperately to calm himself. His face was wet, and he realized that twin rivers of tears were running down his cheeks. He flinched in humiliation as he wiped them away as quickly as he could. This was exactly why he didn't want a psychiatrist around.

Gradually his breathing levelled and his frantic heartbeat slowed. He curled his limbs in towards his body and fell into an exhausted sleep on the bedroom floor.


	10. Chapter Nine

Note: Credit and thanks to Scott Frost, whose retort I borrowed.

CHAPTER NINE

The week passed wretchedly for Al. News of his humiliating display in the LEMS spread as juicy gossip is wont to do, and by Wednesday morning everyone knew what had happened. No one would meet his eye, though he could feel them staring at his back, and conversations halted when he entered a room. Al was familiar enough with the dynamics of military instillations to know that everyone was waiting to see what was going to happen to him. Of all the curses a man could be smitten with, claustrophobia was perhaps the absolute least likely to be overlooked in an astronaut.

Al tried to go through the motions of a regular routine. They had cleared him from the simulator schedule entirely, but he could still use the other machines. Those he was good with. Even the centrifuge, though not exactly his favorite, was simple enough once you just relaxed. He had what it took… in theory. He knew he was good at the simulations too: he was quick and decisive, and he had a knack for remembering complex command sequences without referring to the itinerary or asking Cap Com for confirmation. If he could just quell the sense of rising panic that started to encroach on his sanity whenever he found himself in a confined space…

That was why he was putting in time on the training devices. He had to keep up with the others as best he could. He was trying desperately to overcome his irrational terror. Every chance he got he exposed himself to the cause of his fear. The psychiatrist had called it "flooding", and listed it as one of several treatment options. Maybe shrinks had something else they did in addition to the exposure, though, because it wasn't working. In fact, the attacks were getting worse. Shivers now ran up Al's spine whenever he passed his bedroom closet, and the other day he had almost gone off the road driving with the windows closed. Nevertheless, he had to lick this. He wasn't going to give up. He wasn't going to give Elsa Orsós the satisfaction of telling everybody she had known he was a quitter.

One week after his meeting with Yardley, Al made his way to the briefing room. The roster for Apollo 19 was to be announced this morning. Even though Al knew he hadn't made it, he felt he had to make an appearance. After all, he wasn't officially out of the program yet, and if he had anything to say about it he would be shortlisted for the next mission.

A brief shudder of hopelessness worked itself down his back as he paused before the briefing room door. He didn't really believe he could do it. It was just his obstinacy telling him he wasn't going to let anybody, especially not an impossible hag like Elsa Orsós, be vindicated in their allegations of cowardice.

Obstinacy was enough. Obstinacy had helped him overcome torment worse than this. Obstinacy and Beth…

Well, he didn't have Beth anymore. Obstinacy was just going to have to suffice.

The first ten seconds after he entered the room were horrible. The chatter died instantly as eighteen eyes turned towards him. Jacobs snorted quietly. Simmons looked away in an almost hangdog manner. Roosa and Glenwood exchanged knowing glances. Then Taggert got to his feet.

"Calavicci!" he said warmly, shattering the awkward silence. "Good morning! We're expecting the suits any minute now. C'mon and sit down."

Wary of this sudden show of friendship, Al sat in the vacant chair next to Taggert. Simmons cleared his throat. "We were just talking about being two years behind schedule," he said. "Trying to figure out if that's going to make the public more or less interested in the mission."

"Less," Glenwood said firmly. "They don't care about the space program."

"Then who cares about them?" Jacobs asked.

"Congress, for one," said Taggert. "As long as the government's footing the bill for these little field trips they're going to want to see results in the polls."

"That's a kind of cynical view, isn't it?" Roosa pointed out. "I mean, the scientific advances that we're making—"

"The government doesn't give a damn about science!" Glenwood scoffed. "They're just interested in the next election."

"I don't know," Al ventured. "It seems to me that the government's show a lot of interest in scientific research over the years. You just need to put the right spin on it."

"Oh, yeah, Calavicci?" Jacobs challenged. "And what kind of spin are they putting on this?"

"I don't know that, but it has to be a pretty positive one. I mean, they could just as easily have cancelled these last three missions back in '70—"

"I don't think you're a very good gauge of the American political situation in 1970, are you, Calavicci?" Jacobs asked with a nasty sneer.

Al stiffened. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"I think you know what that means."

"I don't think it's fair of me to jump to a conclusion like that," Al said acerbically.

"_I_ don't think it's fair that the rest of us have to have our training schedules thrown off while a brainwashed commie turncoat has flashbacks in the simulator!" Jacobs snapped.

Taggert and whoever was sitting on Al's other side had to grab his arms and haul him back to prevent him from launching himself over the table to wipe that look of smug superiority off of the Texan's broad face. They couldn't stop the string of multilingual profanity that spilled from his lips: English and Italian and Vietnamese and even the "_bazd meg, elfajzott!_" that Elsa had hit him two weeks ago, despite the fact that he had no idea what that meant. Jacobs bristled, and Roosa and the major with the strong Bostonian accent sprung up to restrain him, too. Simmons sprung to his feet and brought his fist down on the table with so much force that one of its legs leaped off of the ground and the pens went rolling for the floor.

"_Enough_!" he barked. "Calavicci, sit down and control yourself! Jacobs, if you were under my command you would be on latrine duty for a month for that remark! _Calavicci_! Sit _down_!"

Still burning with rage, Al sat. "There wasn't a man over there the VC brainwashed," he snarled, gripping the armrests with so much force that his knuckles turned white. "God knows they tried, but they couldn't do it. Don't you ever say that to me again, you action-shirking nozzle! You filthy cowa—"

"_Calavicci_!" Simmons roared again. Then he leveled his voice reasonably. "All military men have to follow their orders. Jacobs was assigned to NASA in '66. It isn't his fault that he wasn't called upon to serve overseas."

"Oh, sure. Hundreds of—"

Al stopped as Taggert gripped his arm. The lieutenant's eyes were almost… pleading? "Come on, Calavicci," he said softly. "It's not worth it."

Realizing even through his rage that he was right, Al sat back, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at Jacobs as if he could will him to spontaneously combust.

"All right," Simmons said firmly. "Now that we're all calm, let's just try to be a little more open-minded all around."

"No, Jacobs is right," Glenwood said. "I mean, I for one don't think it's fair that some of us have been with the program from the get-go, and in comes this greenhorn who's supposed to be given an equal chance with the rest of us. We've been waiting for eight years, and he comes along expecting the same consideration, just because he was a prisoner of war—"

A bitter laugh tore itself from Al's lips before he could stop it. "Oh, I wasn't lucky enough to be a proper prisoner of war!" he said harshly. Taggert's grip on his forearm tightened as if he was afraid that Al was going to try another assault on the morons.

"That's enough," Simmons commanded. "The next person who maligns someone else's war record—"

The door opened and Simmons sat hastily as Yardley and his aide entered, followed by a couple of the colonels who were overseeing the astronauts' training.

"Good morning," Yardley said. "Sorry I'm running a little late—there was a bit of a hitch over at Skylab this morning…" He settled at the head of the table. "As always, gentlemen, it was a difficult decision, but we've finalized the roster for Apollo 19. To those who will be going up in May, congratulations. To the rest of you, you've all done well, and you'll get another chance next January."

He produced a clipboard and cleared his throat. "Lunar Excursion Module Pilot, Major David Winters."

The Bostonian grinned in delight. Al was surprised at his own disappointment. He had thought he was adequately prepared for these announcements.

Yardley was continuing. "Command Module Pilot, Captain Ashton Glenwood." He raised his eyes from the paper and studied the faces before him. "Mission Commander, Major Stuart Roosa. Congratulations, gentlemen. You're going to the moon."

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

After the duty shift ended the other astronauts headed into town to celebrate and congratulate the lucky ones. Al wasn't in the mood.

He was trying to forget what had happened in the briefing room. To help himself, he left the hangar and wandered out by the runways. An A-4 Skyhawk… and _old_ A-4 Skyhawk, now, he reflected grimly, was circling above, coming in for a landing. He moved over to a jumble of crates stamped with the legend "USAF". With a little maneuvring he hauled his scrawny form up onto one of them, letting one leg dangle and drawing the other knee up to his chest. He watched the plane as it descended and touched the asphalt with the grace of an alighting butterfly. He stared at it and wondered wistfully if he would ever be able to fly again.

There was a cigar in the breast pocket of his uniform—not strictly allowed on base, but not expressly forbidden out of doors. He bit off the tip and spit it out, then dug out a pack of matches emblazoned with the name of a particularly wild nightclub he'd visited a while back. He cupped one hand around the flame to shield it from the crosswind, and puffed until the flame took. He inhaled blissfully. A taste of paradise.

The cigar reminded him of Chip. Good old Chip, who never let a guy down, who could always be counted on to sniff out a good time in a fresh port. Chip, who had been there to put a firm, companionable arm around his shoulder when the news had come about Lisa. Chip, best man when he had married Beth. Al's eyes drifted back to the A-4 now taxiing towards its hangar. He couldn't forget the way Chip's plane had flown apart as if it was made of paper when the SAM missile had made contact. Even after the horrors of captivity that moment stood out as one of the worst of the whole war.

Al inhaled fiercely, sending out twin jets of smoke through his nostrils. Why did it still hurt? Wasn't it ever going to stop hurting? Just like the place deep in his left shoulder, where the ligaments had been yanked and torn and popped out of alignment once too many times, so that it still ached dully almost continuously, this pain wasn't fading. Maybe because he'd never had a chance to mourn Chip properly. Three days later, the morning before the memorial service and a week before rotation back to San Diego, the squadron had gone in for one last run over the Highlands and lost one more pilot. Only this one hadn't died. He'd come out of the jungle shattered, twisted and malnourished six years later, and now he was sitting on a tall wooden box trying to make sense of the whole miserable mess that was his life.

Eyes were boring into the back of his head. Al didn't like to think that he was paranoid, but years of crouching on display in the tiger cage, an open target for any gook with a grudge had left him somewhat jumpy. He spun around, throwing out his hand to catch himself before he could fall off of the crate.

"Oh," he said sourly, taking another drag on the cigar and resting his chin on his knee. "It's you."

Elsa Orsós smiled sardonically. "Yes," she said. "It's me. Aren't you lucky?"

"When have I ever been lucky?" Al muttered.

"Still feeling sorry for yourself," she observed, approaching with the kind of confidence that Al could only wish for. "Does it help?"

"Shut up." Al plucked the cigar from his lips and tapped a little ash onto the ground.

"I don't think so," Elsa said.

"Neither did I. Too hard to resist the opportunity to gloat. After all, you're only human. Almost human."

"You didn't get the mission. Too bad." Elsa put her hands on top of the crate next to Al.

"You win, all right? Just leave me alone."

"Help me up," she said, grabbing his hand. Rolling his eyes in defeat, Al gripped it and she wiggled up onto the box. He noticed abruptly that she had removed her lab coat, and his eyes couldn't help skimming over her shapely bosom. When he reached her eyes again she was glaring at him.

"Sorry," he mumbled, looking away. "Serves you right for not leaving me alone."

"Hah! If everybody leaves you alone you're going to swallow yourself."

"I'm going to _what_?" Al turned back to her with a puzzled frown.

She gestured impotently. "In Hungary, we say… no, forget that I said it: it makes no sense in English. Let me tell you a story, dirty-minded little boy."

"Look, if you're just going to insult me—"

She patted his cheek condescendingly with one beautifully manicured hand. "Hush and listen," she said. "Once upon a time, there was a girl who was afraid of loud noises."

Al's eyebrows danced as if they had a mind of their own, and the lower lid of his left eye twitched. "What kind of story is this?" he asked suspiciously.

Elsa continued. "She was afraid of loud noises because when she was small there was a war, and in the middle of the night there would be shooting and explosions. She was afraid that the noises would hurt her, because when she was small noises had hurt many people she knew. So even when she was older she hated loud noises."

"Uh-huh," Al grunted around his cigar.

"It's true," Elsa said. "When she grew up she crossed the ocean on a ship, and every time there was a sound from the engines or the watch-bells she would feel fear before her mind could help her realize that there was no danger. This made the journey very difficult. Still, until she decided what she wanted to do with her life, there was no problem."

"Oh, yeah? She wanted to be a road worker or something?"

"No. She wanted to work with computers. The old computers were very loud, and at times she had great trouble concentrating on her work because her mind would try to bring her back to the war. But at last she decided that she wanted her dream badly enough that she overcame the fear. Now she can sit by a runway and she isn't afraid at all."

"And why do I care?" Al asked.

"If you don't care about anything, why do you bother to stay here?" Elsa demanded. "If you want to quit, why don't you quit instead of hanging around in the centrifuge and going to the briefings?"

Al didn't answer her.

"I know," said Elsa. He glanced at her in mild surprise. "You have shadows under your eyes. You have been trying to keep up with your training during the day, and at night you are trying to overcome your fear. I'm not stupid."

"No comment," Al grumbled. Was he really that easy to see through, or was she just guessing?

"But it isn't working, and now you want to give up again."

Something inside snapped. "Look, just leave me alone, okay? I've got enough to deal with without feminist know-it-alls trying to psychoanalyse my life!"

"Have you thought about who is going to get you back into the simulator?" Elsa asked. Al frowned. She then nodded her head calculatingly. "I thought not," she said. She hopped off of the crate and started to walk away.

"Wait!" Al cried. She paused and turned, and then he realized that he had no idea what to say. "Look, I… Elsa…"

She cocked her head to one side so that her earring glittered blindingly, waiting expectantly.

At a loss, Al found himself producing sounds that they usually did in the presence of a beautiful woman.

"You and I really should have dinner some time," he said.

Her eyes ignited like signal flares. "Maybe," she said.

Al grinned victoriously.

"When they start serving ice in the drinkss in the cocktail lounge of hell," Elsa added. She turned on her heels and strode off in the direction of the parking lot.

Torn between wonder at her wit and annoyance at her flat-out rejection, Al waited until he was sure she had to be gone before heading for his own car. He pulled out of the lot and made for the gates, firmly resisting the voice that told him that he had to open the windows.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

_The Black Flamingo_ was housed in an abandoned warehouse in the heart of one of the worst neighbourhoods in Orlando. A lesser man might have been afraid to park a sleek new sports car between the burned-out apartment building and the adult video store, but Calavicci had complete confidence in human nature—at least among the down-and-out brothers of the world.

He got out of the car, smoothing the sleek lapels of his new silver suit. One hand found its way to his head to tease the curls out of their smooth military conformation. He hadn't even bothered to go back to the apartment: he had just driven straight to the city, and after an evening of spending like there was no tomorrow (he had always said tomorrow was overrated!) he was ready to party.

The _Flamingo_ catered to a predominantly African-American clientele, but Al had been there more than once already, learning the new moves and integrating himself into the glitzy and gloriously superficial subculture of disco. He earned some askance looks as he stepped into the enormous dance hall already pulsing with music and filled with gyrating bodies. Then a girl he'd done a couple of numbers with last week came twisting out of nowhere. Her name was Daphne, and her roommate was visiting her mother in Atlanta this week. The second she said that, Al knew that he wouldn't be staring at his closet tonight. In fact, with his uniform in the trunk of the Ferrari, there was absolutely no reason to go back to the apartment at all tonight. Curling one hand around her soft, supple waist he let himself be swept away in the whirl of frantic abandon that filled the floor. The sour taste of the day was soon washed from his mouth by the violent catharsis of noise and action, and the sweet, velvety kisses he stole between songs.


	11. Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

The chill of the stethoscope on his back prompted Al to take in a sharp breath. Doctor Wagner chuckled at the dirty look the Naval man shot over his shoulder.

"I told you so," he said. "Now, take a deep breath." Al complied, still bristling. "And hold it." The practiced right thumb rolled and probed between the still-too-prominent ribs while Wagner's left hand held the disc in place. "Let her out."

He moved the stethoscope to the other side. "Deep breath. Doctor Mortmain mentioned you'd been in to see him." Holding his breath, Al could only glare at him out of the corner of his eye. Wagner laughed again. "And let it out," he said. Al exhaled.

"For all of ten minutes," he said crossly.

"You should make it a regular thing," Wagner said. "He can help you work through your fear. You can overcome claustrophobia, you know."

"Yeah, so I've heard," Al muttered. "Easier said than done."

"Easier with a little trained support," Wagner pointed out. "You can beat this, Calavicci. You don't need to wash out of the program."

"I'm not going to wash out!" Al snapped. "I'm working on it. I don't need any headshrinker to help me. Look at me: I'm a good boy. I've been eating and everything."

Wagner frowned. "Two pounds in three weeks isn't exactly what we had in mind, Mister. You're still lighter than you were when you arrived. I don't think claustrophobia is the only problem you're dealing with right now, is it?"

"Who has problems?" Al demanded, brushing off the older man's concern with a derisive wave of his hand. "I've just got an energetic lifestyle. If you saw the kind of nighttime action I do you'd be skinny too."

Wagner laughed, ruefully patting his slightly paunchy stomach. "You've got me there," he said. "So you're finding the ladies in Florida to be to your liking, then?"

"De_licious_," Al said, his defensive attitude put suddenly on hold for a shameless smirk.

"Yeah, there are some real darlings around here," Wagner said. Then he winked. "Don't tell my wife I said that!"

"Hmm," Al mused. "Always nice to have something on your physician."

Wagner clicked his tongue as he moved to the other side of the examination table and put a fresh tip on the scope, tilting Al's head to one side to look into his ear.

"You have plans for the holidays?" he asked.

Damn. Al had forgotten that. "Nothing special," he said, as levelly as he could. "You?"

"Jane and I are heading out to Boston tonight," Wagner said. "Grandson's first Christmas."

"Congratulations. He a big kid?"

Wagner grinned proudly. "Biggest three-month-old I ever saw. Of course, that was in August. I expect he'll be walking any day now."

"I expect he will," Al said generously. He didn't know much about babies, but he didn't think they usually started walking at seven months.

"You have any family in Florida?" Wagner asked.

Al shook his head. "Nope. No family."

"Mm-hmm." Wagner made a couple of quick notes on his chart. As Al had hoped, he took the answer in the narrow rather than the broader sense: _no family in __Florida_. That was good. He didn't want pity.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

It was noon, so Al made his way down towards the simulator hangar. None of the astronauts should be there. Maybe a couple of technicians.

And Elsa Orsós, he realized abruptly as he entered the vaulted room. She was bent over her console, removing a panel with a screwdriver.

Al tried to retreat, not looking forward to having another heart-to-heart with the diminutive Amazon, but Elsa turned.

"Calvichy!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing in here?"

The two guys oiling the pistons that shook the module during takeoff and landing looked up briefly, but then returned to their work. Elsa, however, set down the screwdriver and strode across the room, wiping her dusty hands on her lab coat. Al tried to retreat, but she caught his arm.

"Don't leave just because the company in here is too intelligent for you," she said. "I asked you a question."

"Never mind," Al said sourly. If she was bent on fighting, he wasn't in the mood. "I was just leaving."

"Hah! Sure." She tossed her head. "You wanted to come in here to face your devils, and you're frightened of doing it while there's somebody to watch!"

Maybe he _was_ in the mood after all. Al shrugged her grip off of his arm. "Look, dragon-breath, I don't know where you get this idea that I care what you think—"

"Strange how easy it is to get an idea when it's true!" Elsa retorted. "If you want to use the simulator you will have to come back later. The gyros are malfunctioning."

"What happened?" Al asked. "You look at them?"

Elsa's eyes narrowed. "In fact, yes," she said. "Now be quiet before I turn my Gorgon's eye on you."

Because he knew it would drive her up the wall, Al leaned in seductively. "I've got a mirrored shield," he murmured suavely. "I think I can take it." The tips of his fingers felt for her hip.

"You can take it and launch it into orbit!" she snapped, taking three firm steps away from him.

"What happened to the sweet little Elsa who was telling bedtime stories by the runway the other day?" Al asked, following her.

"What happened to 'astronaut and programmer'?" Elsa rejoined. She stepped away again

Al smirked. "So I'm an astronaut now?"

"Nobody seems to think so," Elsa said coldly. She turned her back and strode back to the console she was repairing.

That cut to the bone. Indignation, rage and shame clouded Al's reason. "I am going into space!" he avowed, marching up to her and grabbing her shoulder.

"Sure," she sneered, curling her lip. "And are you doing any better?"

His arm was starting to shake at the thought of this morning's session in the closet, when he had melted down even before closing the door all the way. He released her with a violent thrusting motion. "Leave me alone, you cold-hearted bitch," he snarled. "No wonder you don't know how to handle men. Nobody's ever been stupid enough to get near you!"

She stared at him, too astounded to reply. Then Al's ears processed what had come out of his mouth and the sense of his dishonor burned in his chest. Women were meant to be cherished and admired, not maligned. What had he done?

Ashamed of himself in too many ways to count, Al hurried from the hangar, blinking indignantly against the reaction his eyes wanted to make. What he didn't see as he fled was how Elsa dabbed at her own eyes and the traitorous tears of hurt that glistened there.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

The family in the next apartment was singing carols. Through the thin dividing wall, the sounds floated clearly: a father's rich baritone; the mother in a tremulous alto; and the loud, lusty and off-key super-sopranos of two little kids.

Al tried not to remember his last Christmas Eve with his parents. He had toiled all through Advent, trying to teach Trudy the words to "Silent Night". She was not quite three, and she could hardly talk, but in the end the careful coaching had caught on. Poppa had been so proud when his children had performed the simple song for him. Momma had burst into tears and hastened from the room, shouting that when Al had been Trudy's age, he had been making up his _own_ songs. Al had tried to follow her, to comfort her while Poppa applauded Trudy, but she had locked herself in the bedroom and couldn't seem to hear him calling to her. Then Poppa had bundled up his two little ones and taken them out for a walk by the rich people's houses, where brightly lit trees shimmered in the windows and cast little diamond reflections on the wet snow. Another world.

The sounds coming through the living room wall wouldn't let him forget, so he went into the kitchen. He had picked up a bottle of twelve-year-old Scotch on his way home from the base yesterday, after the ugly argument with Elsa, and now he was going to enjoy some of it. He dug out a glass and rummaged in the freezer for ice. He watched the amber fluid wash over the transparent slivers. It was beautiful. He hadn't had a good stiff drink for… well, for too long.

Unwilling to fight the memories of that long-ago night, Al headed for the bedroom. There weren't many options, unless he wanted to go and enjoy his drink in the head. Besides, the bedroom was cozy enough, the bed was soft, and if he kept the closet door closed he wouldn't be tormented by his problems.

It was cruelly ironic, he reflected as he took off his shoes and tucked them under the bed next to his combat boots and his dress leathers. In trying to conquer his fear he had not only made it worse, but he had also created a new one. He shuddered as he glanced at the door separating his sleeping space from his self-made prison. Then he sighed heavily and took a fiery sip of whiskey. Maybe it was hopeless. Maybe he _should_ just give up.

If he did give up, it would be the end of his NASA career. He couldn't go running to Mortmain, or any other shrink. He couldn't deal with that kind of humiliation. Not now. Not when he was just starting to feel human again. No, if he gave up he would have to head back to the Navy. Maybe they could find a use for him in an office somewhere. If not, at least they'd be obliged to help him find _something_. He had obtained this handicap through loyal service, after all.

He leaned back against the pillows, hugging his abdomen with one arm. He was lonely tonight. There weren't many girls looking for a good time on Christmas Eve. He had even driven through Orlando's red light district, but it seemed that even the hookers were staying in for the holidays.

He wondered what Beth was doing right now. Probably having a beautiful, candlelit dinner with her new lawyer husband. Only he wasn't her _new_ husband. They'd be celebrating their fifth anniversary this summer, right when Al was marking his forty-second birthday. He hoped to God the nozzle was taking care of her. Damn it, he had better be treating her like a goddess.

A child's voice filtered through from the next apartment, unintelligible but unmistakable. Anguish seized Al's chest. What if they had kids? He'd had a nightmare like that once, over _there_. He remembered. He had just spent a week in the tiger cage. He was crippled, his muscles shrunken and atrophied from crouching for so long, and half out of his head with exhaustion, because Quon had given orders that the guards weren't to let him sleep. They had dragged him back at last to that tiny, stinking, miserable hooch, and he had slipped into a heavy, enervated slumber, wedged against Jeff with his head on Fred's shrunken stomach. He had dreamed. Beth was laughing, so happy… and surrounded by mousy-haired Anglo kids, each one of them calling her "Mommy"…

Al realized he was crying, hot tears trickling from the corners of his eyes. He scrubbed them viciously away, and took another mouthful of the Scotch. The moment of weakness stiffened his resolve. If it killed him, he was going to go to the moon, and it was going to start tomorrow, Christmas or no Christmas.

He didn't feel like celebrating this year, anyway.


	12. Chapter Eleven

Note: "The Christmas Song" © Mel Torme and R.Wells

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The dull-eyed Marine who had had the misfortune to draw Christmas duty waved Al past the gates without even a second glance. The Lieutenant Commander smirked. His vehicle was distinctive, all right. That's how he liked to play it: unique and flashy. Besides, girls were always all over a guy with a hot car.

There wouldn't be any girls today, he reflected grimly. If he survived what he was putting himself through he would have to settle for little rewards instead of big ones. A cigar and more of that twelve-year-old Scotch. Hard to find girls on Christmas Day.

He parked exactly where he wasn't supposed to, reasoning that nobody would come around checking the administration staff's spots this of all mornings and well aware that if he needed to make a quick escape he would want the car close.

The main door to the hangar was locked, but that wasn't going to stop him. Al the Pick had come prepared. He went around to the back, where there was a smaller door next to the overheads. From his pocket he took a pharmacy vial that had once held Percodan provided for one of his post-operative "independent living" experiences in San Diego, an industrial-weight paper clip, and a small piece of copper wire harvested from behind a wall outlet in the apartment and flattened with the meat tenderiser. The vial held a little puddle of olive oil, with which he greased the wire, bending the tip into a little triangle. Then he opened the paper clip and slipped it into the lock. He stroked the pins lightly with the copper pick, keeping a good steady pressure with the paper clip. You had to be gentle, petting the lock the way you would pet a woman's hair. Then one stabbing thrust with the copper wire at the right moment, followed by an energetic twist of the wrist gripping the paper clip, and the deadbolt sprung. Grinning to himself, Al slipped into the hangar, taking care to bolt the door again behind him.

He groped around for the light switch, his eyes slow to accustom themselves to the gloom. He didn't want to turn on many lights—just enough so that he could find his way out if he needed to.

He told himself that this was stupid. There was no reason for him to be sneaking around like this. All he would have had to do was ask Yardley for permission… but Yardley probably would have insisted on having a tech on duty, and someone to run the simulator, or at least a Marine to stand around and see that the crazed war veteran didn't wreck anything.

All right, that wasn't fair. Yardley was a decent human being, and it wasn't right to pretend he wasn't. If he found out, though, that Al had been poking around in restricted areas unsupervised—and forcing locks—there would be consequences, and they weren't likely to be pretty.

Al didn't care. He had always had a reckless spirit, but there was more to this than that. He had learned, the hard way, the exact value of each action—precisely how much torture, anguish and wretchedness each gesture of defiance was worth. This one, a whole day in the simulator to grapple with his terror, was worth a lot more than a reprimand, which was what he would probably get if they caught him. Absolute worst-case scenario, they'd discharge him from NASA and he'd get shunted back into Naval service, which was where he was going to end up anyway if he couldn't get past this irrational fear of confined spaces.

He found an itinerary in one of the wall lockers. Not bothering to put on a flight suit, he took off his shoes and his tie, and climbed into the simulator as he was, in bright polyester civvies and stocking feet. It occurred to him abruptly that he couldn't close the hatch from the inside. On the other hand, though, he couldn't open it from the inside either, so that was probably just as well. He glanced quickly around the hangar before sliding down into the middle seat.

With no Cap Com, no light cues, and no co-pilots, he couldn't have any really accurate sense of space flight, but that didn't matter. What mattered was separating this capsule from the memories of other tiny spaces. If he could do it with this one, he would try the LEMS next—which somehow seemed a thousand times more difficult. Al strapped himself in and began to work through the launch itinerary, talking out everyone's part as best he could.

To his amazement, he reached the end of the booklet before he realized that his chest was aching and he was sweating profusely. With effort, he hauled himself out of the simulator and sank to the floor, chafing his hands against his face. He had done it. A whole ninety-minute session in the capsule without breaking down into panic.

A mean voice in the back of his head told him that he had done it before, too. It then proceeded to remind him that there had been no extra bodies generating heat, and the hatch had been open and the capsule not pressurized. There had been no jolts, no lights, no sensory distractions, no stress. He didn't stand a chance in an actual simulation.

Al ordered the voice to be quiet. When it wouldn't obey, he tried to overpower it with recitation of facts. He _had_ gone through the motions of a whole launch. He _had_ stayed calm and focused on the task at hand. What's more, he was going to do it again!

He swapped the itinerary for a more complicated one and padded back to the simulator, his unshod feet silent on the concrete. It was harder to climb into the capsule this time: his throat closed and his heart hammered. He did it, though, sitting down and closing his eyes against the apparition of the walls pressing in around him. He took slow, deliberate breaths. _I told you so_, the little voice mocked. _You can't do it. _

"The hell I can't," he growled, his voice reverberating in the capsule. The echo comforted him. Small spaces didn't echo. He opened his eyes and started to talk through the procedure. Soon, though, shivers were coursing through his body, and his breath was coming shallow and fast. There was the familiar pressure on the back of his neck. Defiant, unwilling to surrender so easily, he began to talk louder.

Suddenly there was a voice shouting from outside the simulator.

"Who's there? Come out slowly! I have a gun!"

Al froze, not sure that he had heard correctly. Then the familiar, accented female voice repeated its demand.

"Come out! I have a gun!"

Elsa Orsós. Al got to his feet and moved to the hatch. He raised his hands out of the opening, palms open.

"I'm coming out!" he called. He had heard enough half-joking stories about crossing feminists to be wary of taking his chances, especially with this one. "Ready? Here I come."

He climbed out slowly, lowering himself onto the metal steps. Sure enough, there she stood next to her customary console, pointing something black and metal at him.

"_You_!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah, me. Surprise." Al smirked. "That's not a gun, that's a deep-socket ratchet."

She looked at the object she was holding with some discomfiture. "You frightened me," she said. "I thought that someone had broken into the simulator."

"Someone did," Al said, dispensing with the stairs and swinging himself to the ground in an attempt to look confident. It backfired as his fear-weakened knees trembled and almost buckled. He straightened and tried a roguish grin. "Me."

"I'm calling the guards." She turned towards the telephone affixed to a nearby pillar. Then she stopped and frowned. "How did you get in here?" she demanded.

Al shrugged. "Back door," he said simply.

"I came in the back door, too," Elsa said. "It was locked."

"I'm a man of many talents," Al told her.

Her expression of uneasiness deepened. "What are you doing in here?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

"I have a key," she said. "I come and go when I want."

"I don't have a key," Al rejoined. "Apparently I can still come and go when I want."

"It's Christmas. Why are you in the simulator on Christmas?" Elsa asked.

"I'd feel obliged to answer that," Al said; "if I thought that I was the only one defying convention here."

"I have work to do. It's quiet today. At least," she amended, shooting him a dirty look; "I thought it was going to be quiet."

Al shrugged. "You could always call the guards and have me hauled out of here," he said. "Although I'd appreciate it if I could put my shoes on first."

"I'm not calling anybody until you say what you were doing in here," Elsa said firmly.

"Practicing."

"Some practice!" she scoffed. "No lights, no partners!"

"Yeah, well, those of us in disgrace don't have that kind of luxury," Al grumbled, casting his eyes around aimlessly.

There was a silence.

"I could run the simulator for you," Elsa offered abruptly. Al looked up in surprise.

"What?"

"Run. The. Simulator. It's what I do, you know."

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why would you want to do that?"

Elsa shrugged. "Why would a man who is afraid of small spaces want to go into space?"

"All right," Al said. "Fine. I'd appreciate it. I've got flight book 32-D in there."

Elsa shook her head. "Not that one," she said. "One person can't run that one. You'd burn up in thirty seconds.

"The LEMS?" Al asked, his throat drying out.

"Unless you have an invisible playmate who can push buttons for you?"

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Al took one last deep breath as he helped Elsa haul the hatch of the LEMS into place. He flexed his fingers anxiously, and sat down, strapping himself in and switching on his radio.

"Airlock sealed," Elsa's voice said in his ear. "Prepare for separation, LEMS."

"Uh… acknowledge Apollo," Al said. It was weird to hear a woman's voice on the other end of that thing. Just _weird_. "Preparing for separation."

He stretched to flip a switch that the other person should have been handling. "Disengage clamps, Apollo."

"Disengaging."

The module shook. Al coughed a little and forced himself to focus on the task at hand. He closed his fingers around the joystick and began to maneuver the LEMS free of the capsule. At least, if he hadn't been in a simulator, that would have been what was happening.

Ten minutes passed, as his collar grew damper and his head lighter. His shoulders were starting to ache, but whether it was the tension or the sense of pressure he wasn't sure. Finally, inevitably, he started to panic.

"I've got to get out of here," he muttered into the microphone. "Abort the mission."

"That is a negative, LEMS," Elsa said levelly. "You are midway through your descent. Engage reverse thrusters."

"Are you hearing me?" Al gasped. "I have to get out! I can't breathe!"

"Confirming. Oxygen levels normal. Engage reverse thrusters on my mark, LEMS. Five, four—"

"I can't breathe!" Al protested. "Abort!"

"—three," Elsa continued. "Two. One. Engage."

"Engaging." The word was out and the thrusters firing before Al realized he had done it.

"Cap Com reading steady descent, LEMS," Elsa intoned. "Three degrees port."

Perspiration was trailing into Al's eyes. The walls were closing in on him. He couldn't breathe!

"Abort!" he said. "Abort!"

"LEMS, do you read me? Bank three degrees to port."

The joystick moved under his hands. He was shaking. The front of his shirt was drenched with sweat. He struggled not to remember… not to remember anything. Just calm down, Calavicci. Dammit, calm down. Not again.

_NOT AGAIN!_ his mind wailed. They were doing it again! Didn't they have any mercy? Couldn't they let him heal a little before they bound him up? There was pressure on his jugular. His arms were compressed against his back. He couldn't move.

"You look good, LEMS." Elsa's voice was coming out of a fog bank. Al couldn't bring the console in front of him into focus. "Altitude 1200 feet and falling. Engage secondary reverse thrusters on my mark. In five, four, three, two. One. Engage."

"No!" Al moaned, his voice rasping on itself. "No! Let me out! I can't breathe!"

"Engage secondary thrusters!" Elsa ordered sharply.

The panic had control of him now. She wasn't going to let him out! He was trapped! He was going to die in here! He would die in here, suffocated and crushed, and no one would ever know! Oh, God, and he couldn't breathe!

"Let me out!" he cried, fighting his harness, fumbling fruitlessly with the buckle mechanism. He had to get free. Any second the pressure that was collapsing his lungs would force his hands into paralysis. Any second now it would be too late! "Let me out!"

"Engage thrusters!" Elsa barked.

"I can't! Let me out! Let me out!" he hollered frantically. "I can't breathe!" His next shallow inhalation was an agonized wheeze that seemed to tear open his bronchi. "I can't breathe! Let me out of here!"

"Engage thrusters!" she repeated, forceful and demanding.

"NO!" he wailed. He no longer had control over his mind, or his body, or his voice. They had won again. He had broken again. Shame and despair could not silence the terror that made him cry out, that made him beg for deliverance. "No, God, please, let me out! Have mercy! Have mercy, let me out! I can't breathe! I can't! God, please! Please, no more! No more! Stop! Please, stop! Please! _Please!_"

"_Engage thrusters_!" Elsa roared.

Al couldn't see anything. His vision was obliterated by black spots. His temples pounded. The frantic hammering of his heart against his spasming ribs was all that he could hear. But then, suddenly, the hateful voice of the heartless bitch in his ear was telling him to activate the stabilizers and prepare for EVA. The next thing he knew there was a hiss of air and someone was fumbling with his restraints. He thrashed and fought, desperate to put up one last good fight before the darkness claimed him.

"Calvichy," Elsa's voice was saying. "Calvichy, I'm not Taggert and I can't drag you out of here myself. You have to get up. Come on, get up and we'll get you out."

"Out?" Al moaned, gasping frantically for air.

"Out!" she said, hauling on his arms and forcing him out of the seat.

He was shaking violently, and he fell as she forced him through the hatch. Tumbling painfully down the steps he landed on the concrete, his body quivering with deep tremors of terror. His hands clutched frantically at the floor. His lungs slowly took control of themselves again.

A firm hand with long, sharp nails settled onto his perspiration-soaked shirt. Al crept up onto his elbows, his chest heaving as his body tried to compensate for the oxygen deprivation. The panic was fading, to be replaced by a deep sense of degradation.

"Here," Elsa said, holding a paper cup to his lips. "Drink. Calm down."

Al tried to take the cup, but he couldn't. Making his shivering fingers obey him was some kind of an abstract theory that couldn't be applied in the real world. Instead he meekly opened his mouth and let her tip the cool fluid down his parched throat. He gasped shallowly and tried to sit up. Elsa helped him, pushing back sweat-saturated curls.

"Is better?" she asked.

Al didn't answer. He shrank away from her, drawing his knees up to his chest and hiding his face in his folded arms. The shame of the situation was overwhelming. Damn it, he would have been better off with a shrink.

"You did it," Elsa said quietly.

Al looked up in astonishment. "I what?"

"You did it," she repeated. "You landed the module safely. You hit those thrusters after I shouted."

"I… don't remember that…" Al mumbled, shaking his head. He had been fighting with the tether… but his hands had left it for a second, hadn't they? Had they?

"But you did it," she said. "You see? You just needed to be forced to. You can do it. Next time will be easier."

"The heck you say," Al muttered, using her own phrase against her.

"We'll see. You take ten minutes while I reset the simulator and we'll try it again."

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Al hated to admit it, but she was right. The firm, insistent voice in his ear that wouldn't capitulate as soon as his heart rate started to skyrocket kept him on task even when the panic was rising in his throat and all that his mind could manage was the repetitive, desperate thought that he had to get out. Elsa ordered him fiercely through two more descents and three dockings, and each time the panic grew less. She only had to forcibly haul him out once more. After that he managed to get through the hatch on his own.

When he climbed out for the last time, exhausted and numb, and realized that he had almost avoided any disgraceful exclamations altogether, he had to fight tears of gratitude.

Elsa got languidly up from her seat and crossed the room. "You see?" she said. "And you only crashed it twice."

Al laughed a little, mopping his forehead with the towel she handed him. "You're a merciless hag," he said.

"And you are an arrogant, insulting monster," she rejoined. "I think that's enough for today. I have to go, or I am going to be late."

"Christmas dinner with your family?" Al asked. He hated himself for it, but he felt a tiny pang of envy.

"My family lives in Budapest," Elsa said. "But Christmas dinner, yes. _Asszony_ Badea cooks it for the people in her building who don't have families here. We have to be each other's family."

"Ah," Al said flatly, moving to retrieve his shoes from the corner. "Well, have a nice time. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas," she said. "You did well."

"Hah. Sure I did." He turned and unbolted the door, one hand massaging the back of his aching neck. The slick layer of sweat coating his body was making him feel absolutely wretched. He buried the recollections of his panicked screams, trying to shake off the profound mortification that was overtaking him now at the memory.

"Calvichy!"

He halted and closed his eyes as Elsa's voice followed him out into the indifferently lit outdoors.

"Where are you going?"

"Home," he said flatly. Such as it was. "I'm not getting back into that thing, not today. I can't."

"Well…" She came forward and pressed something into his hand. "If you decide you want to come, you're welcome."

She went back inside. Al looked down at the paper she had given him. An address. He laughed hollowly. Did she seriously think he wanted to drop in on her landlady's Christmas meal? After today, he wasn't sure he even wanted to see Elsa again. Even though she was beautiful.

He got into his car, rolling down the windows and resting his sore head on the steering wheel. God, he needed to shower. He was filthy.

_MWMWMMWMWMWMWMWM_

Elsa stared out of her landlady's window at the dark streeet. Christmas lights bedecked balconies and the trees on the boulevard. Behind her, her neighbours were chattering happily in a variety of languages. She lived in a building full of foreign-born professionals, most of them unattached and all of them lonely.

She didn't know why she had invited Calavicci to join this assembly of misfits, except that she had had her share of solitary holidays, and didn't want to wish that on anyone. More confusing still was her disappointment that he hadn't come. She hadn't really expected him to, and yet here she was, at nine o'clock at night, watching the road and hoping that maybe, just maybe, he would come around the corner in his vulgar green sports car. It made no sense.

No part of her feelings about Calavicci made sense. She hated him: his lecherous eyes, his suggestive words and his childish insults. Yet she respected him as a true survivor, and as the owner of a tongue almost as quick as her own. She had the feeling, too, that he had no one to fight for him, which was probably why he was so easily angered when he was cornered. Just the sound of his voice sent her into battle mode… and he was one of the most astonishingly handsome men she had ever met.

The angry words that had cut through her heart two days ago rang through her head now._ Nobody's ever been stupid enough to get near you_. There was twofold hurt in Calavicci's thoughtless exclamation. First, Elsa had never found it easy to maintain a relationship. Now and then in college and at Caltech, and even once or twice since moving out here, she had tried to court—to date, the Americans called it. She had even slept with men, though her mother would have been horrified to learn that. The relationships had never lasted.

And second, there had been a boy once… it seemed like such a long time ago, though it wasn't really. Eight short years. Elsa sighed. Her heart was in a box in her side-table drawer.

That thought told her that she had had too much spiced wine. Well, a little more wasn't going to hurt, was it? It would help her forget about Calavicci and everything else. Or help her remember.

She walked unsteadily towards the crowd of holiday revelers, people who were friends and yet still strangers.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM _

Al knotted the belt of his bathrobe. His skin felt tender and smooth after the long, hot soak and the vigorous scrubbing. He ran his fingers through his hair, ruffling the curls so that they stood on end. He didn't care how he looked tonight. Nobody was going to see him.

The trouble was that he wanted to be happy. He wanted so badly to be happy, now that things were all right again, now that he was healthy and whole and safe again, but his mind didn't want to let him. His mind wanted to relive the terrors of the camps, to experience the torture again, to convince him he would fail at whatever he tried, and to remind him, over and over again, that Beth was gone forever. His mind didn't want this world. It wanted another lifetime, a lost lifetime.

Could a man really live four different lives? That was how it felt. The shabbily-dressed, curly-haired little urchin who had been the terror of the good Sisters of St. Anne's orphanage bore no resemblance to the brash young pilot whose life had revolved around death-defying flights and passionate nights that had been rendered suddenly monogamous by a pair of beautiful gray eyes. Neither of those people were anything like the smart-mouthed but spiritless wretch who had cast his face towards the heavens in the desperate hope of easing his torturous thirst with a little rainwater, and lived from beating to beating with grim and intractable determination. Then there was the disillusioned stranger living in an apartment with less character than some federal penitentiaries.

Al had promised himself that he would never turn into this. He had vowed that he wasn't going to let his experiences in Vietnam turn him into some kind of bitter, sadistic monster like the ones who had torn him to pieces time and again and robbed him of every last shred of dignity. How had this happened? How had carefree, fun-loving Bingo turned into the kind of old man who said horrible, unforgivably hurtful things to beautiful women and second-guessed his every action? The kind of old man who couldn't even fly a plane because he'd panic in the cockpit. This wasn't how it was supposed to be.

Oh, yeah? How was it supposed to be, then?

"Not like this," Al whispered, unwittingly protesting aloud. He should have come home to find Beth waiting. She should have been there to kiss him the way he had dreamed during those bitter, empty jungle nights that she would. She should have been there to stroke his bruised face and caress his battered body and show him that he was still worthy of love…

The trouble was that he _wasn't_ worthy of love. He never had been and he never would be. He had deserved to lose Beth, after the way he'd never been there for her, the way he'd put duty first, the way he'd left on that second tour. He'd deserved to have Lisa die on him, after dragging her name through the mud just to save his worthless neck. He'd deserved to lose Trudy: he hadn't even cared enough about her to keep her out of the institution. Pop had died because God didn't bother to listen to the prayers of worthless, lying, foul-minded little troublemakers. He probably had even deserved to have his mother leave, even though he couldn't imagine what a six-year-old could have done to earn such cruel punishment or why poor, sweet little Trudy had had to suffer too.

Angry at the self-pitying thoughts, Al poured himself another Scotch. He knocked it back in two quick gulps. He'd forgotten how good liquor could taste. He'd forgotten a lot of things, but not enough. Not enough.

He was starting to feel tipsy from the alcohol. It felt wonderful. He laughed and poured himself another. He realized that he had never got drunk all by himself before, within the confines of his own quarters, with no Chip to egg him on.

Chip would never egg him on again.

He sighed. So he was alone. So what? He had to get over it. It was, after all, all his own fault. He'd lost or alienated everyone he had ever cared about. Even tonight, if he wanted, he could go and find company at Elsa Orsós' party, but instead he chose to be alone.

He was free to choose. He was_ free!_ The thought struck suddenly and cheered him more than he had thought anything could. Smiling now, warmed by the whiskey and purified by his weariness, he went through to the living room. He took a cigar from the box on the end table, and settled on the sofa, switching on the radio as he went. He lit up and filled his mouth with the aromatic fumes. He closed his eyes, listening to the music floating over the airwaves, out there in a world where people could come and go as they pleased, eat what they wanted, sleep when they wished, say whatever the hell they felt like without fear of torture. He was safe, he was free, and no one was ever going to harm him again. It was Christmas, and he was free, and nothing else really mattered.

"_And so I'm offering this simple phrase,_" Nat King Cole crooned in his ear; "_to kids from one to ninety-two. Although it's been said many times, many ways, Merry Christmas to yo-oo-ou..._"


	13. Chapter Twelve

CHAPTER TWELVE

The first two weeks in January passed uneventfully, at least for Al. For Roosa, Glenwood and Winters it was a fortnight of never-ending action: medical work-ups and press conferences and briefings. In the chaos of preparing for a launch now less than five months away, Calavicci and his little problem were overlooked. This was just as well, because Al was in turmoil. His struggle and ultimate success in the simulator had done nothing to ease the terror that overtook him when he tried to confine himself in his closet. He was still having unexpected attacks—in the shower or in his car, and once even in the back corner of the laundromat. Furthermore, he couldn't even confirm by repeat performance that he _had_ succeeded on Christmas Day. The simulators were off line for the present, while upgrades were added to reflect the minor changes being made to the capsule and the LEM for the Apollo 19 mission.

These upgrades meant that Elsa Orsós was very busy reprogramming the boards. Al was grateful for this, because he really didn't want to face up to what had happened between them over the holidays. The more he thought about it, the more ashamed of himself he became. He had regressed into hell right there in front of her, screaming and crying and begging wretchedly for release. Their battle history heightened his mortification at this show of weakness. It had been the same in Vietnam. As shameful and degrading as it had been when he had pleaded for mercy in the Hanoi camps, nothing equalled the abasement of begging Quon for respite. Their practiced antagonism and endless animosity magnified the bitterness of each defeat. The malicious glitter in the Major's black eyes as he refused once again to ask any questions that might bring some meaning or dignity to Al's anguish and humiliation still came back to haunt him when he awoke in the night.

A lot of things were coming back to haunt him at night, which was another good reason to seek out female company each evening. Waking up alone with the darkness and the memories was unbearable. Waking up next to a slumbering goddess of love who wasn't averse to being roused by probing kisses for a repeat of the evening's performance? That was heavenly, or at least as close to heaven as Calavicci was ever going to get.

Al reported for duty at the beginning of the third week of January after driving one of these divine nymphs home. Her name was Chloë, and she was a costumier at the Magic Kingdom. They had met on Friday night at a little fifties-themed bar just off the main drag to Talahassee, and they had spent the whole weekend getting to know each other intimately. That morning they had reiterated their mutual desire to forgo anything like a long-term relationship, and he had taken her home, never to be seen again.

After that very recreational weekend Al was feeling refreshed and optimistic. Maybe today would be an all-around good day.

So when the J.G. at the sign-in desk told him Yardley wanted to see him, he didn't bat an eyelash. It _could_ be good news: you just never knew!

The secretary ushered him right through, but he halted on the threshold when he realized that the administrator wasn't alone in his office. A dark-haired man in Naval khakis was seated across from Yardley, who adjusted his glasses and looked up.

"Calavicci!" he said. "Come in."

The other man turned, grinning broadly. Then the smile faltered into a puzzled frown. "_Bingo_?" he said, his voice low and querulous with uncertainty.

Something clicked into place, and Al laughed aloud in wonder. "Stacker!" he exclaimed. "Stacker Carpenter! God, it's been so _long_!"

It was Mark "Stacker" Carpenter from the old squadron, the one who had given him his all-too-descriptive nickname. Stacker, best card cheat on the base, partner in crime to Ferguson and Calavicci. As old a friend as any Al had. And God knew he didn't have many anymore.

The other pilot got to his feet. "Bingo! It is you! I never thought I'd see you again!"

He threw out his arms and the two old friends were suddenly embracing, clapping one another on the back and laughing, oblivious to the civilian watching them in bemusement.

"God, look at you!" Stacker cried, gripping Al's shoulders and shaking him. "I never thought I'd—I should have _known_ if anybody could make it out of there it'd be you! Bingo—_damn_, it's good to see you!"

"It's good to see you, too," Al said. "Man, you've changed!"

And he had. His hair was pulling back from his forehead and greying at the temples, his face was more lined than Al remembered, and he had laugh lines next to his eyes and at the corners of his mouth. Though still fit enough for active service, his body was rounder and softened at the edges. The Bingo that Stacker had known probably would have made fun of him and laughed about it. The Al Calavicci of the present, however, was all too aware of his own shortcomings, and regretted speaking even before Carpenter replied.

"So have you!" he enthused, still caught up in the joy of the reunion and not really thinking about what he was saying. "You look like a good north wind would blow you to Cuba!"

Al pulled away self-consciously. He hated his thin, traitorous body almost as much as he hated his weak, cowardly mind. They were both stopping him from going into space. "Yeah, well, I'm trying to fix that."

Stacker seemed to realize that he had hurt his friend, because he laughed a little too loudly and clapped Al on the back.

"Aw, you always were a skinny son of a bitch," he teased. "You Italians have all the luck! Meg's been harping on me to loose a little of my excess tonnage." He patted his stomach.

"How _is_ Meg?" Al asked, his mind flying back to the gorgeous young Information operator who had run a Pensacola switchboard through the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

"Great. Just great," Stacker said. "Still makes the best damned peach cobbler this side of the Mississippi."

"And Carla and little—oh—" Al groped for the name of the blond two-year-old boy he remembered.

"Darcy," Stacker supplied. "And he's not so little anymore. As for Carla, her mother took her out to buy her first mascara just the other week."

Al whistled. "You don't say!"

"Yeah—there's another one too, going on five," Stacker added. "I hope you don't mind—we named him after you and Chip…"

"You mean there's some poor kid out there about to start school under the name of Bingo Chip Carpenter?" Al asked.

"No, Albert Charles," Carpenter said. "Bert for short."

Al wrinkled his nose in distaste. "_Bert_?"

"Yeah, well. There'll only ever be one Al in our books," Stack said. "I would have asked for permission, but—" He seemed unable to say it. His hand flew up to grip Al's arm as if to confirm that he was really there.

"But you thought I was dead," Al finished for him.

Stacker looked away, guilt in his eyes.

Al laughed. "Don't worry about it! Everyone thought I was dead—hell, there were times when _I _thought so!"

He was proud of how nonchalantly the incredibly painful words had skipped out. Carpenter, on the other hand, wasn't cheering up. Al hated it when friends dwelled on what had happened to him in 'Nam. It was bad enough that he couldn't stop reliving it himself, without other people having to. That had been one more reason to leave San Diego.

"So this Bert—good kid?" he asked brightly.

"Nope. A real troublemaker," Stacker said, his grin creeping back. "Meg blames me."

"For your destructive influence?" Al said.

Stack shook his head. "For naming him after the two biggest hell-raisers in the squadron!"

Al laughed, shaking his head. The motion brought Yardley into view and reminded Al that he was in here for a reason. He turned to the administrator.

"Sorry, sir," he said. "We flew together in the war."

"And before," Carpenter added, almost as if he was trying to remind Al that there had been times _before_ the war.

"It's fine: pay no attention to me," Yardley said. "As a matter of fact, Captain Carpenter's the reason I wanted you down here."

Al turned back to his friend. It hadn't even occurred to him to check the insignia on the collar. As surely as Stack had, until a minute ago, been eternally thirty-four, so he had also been the strident, mischievous lieutenant Al had flown up with on that last day in early 'sixty-seven.

"Captain!" he exclaimed. "Not too shabby!"

Carpenter smiled proudly. "Made 'er last spring," he said. "You're not doing so bad yourself: ten years ago I'd have sworn you'd get yourself busted back down to ensign by your thirty-third birthday! You keep going like this, Mister, and you'll make Admiral by the time you're ninety!"

Al didn't have time to remind him that this was just a thoughtless jibe, because Yardley spoke again.

"Captain Carpenter is here to talk to you, Lieutenant Commander," he said. "Please give him your full cooperation."

"Cooperation?" Al said, frowning first at the older man, then at his friend. "What is this?"

"I'm a personnel advisor now," Carpenter said. "I'm here to talk about your future."

Al stared at him in disbelief. "You're a _job shrink_?" he said.

"No. I'm just here to give you somebody to talk to. Somebody who has some kind of idea where you're coming from. Not these space cadets—no offence," he added, glancing at Yardley.

Al shook his head. "I talked to one of you guys in San Diego. That's what got me here. I'm fine where I am."

"Bingo, come on! Just be glad the Navy sent someone you can have a little fun with! Come on, you can show me around." Carpenter gestured that Al should precede him from the room.

"Oh, after you," Al said unctuously. Carpenter exited and Al followed, shooting one last appraising glance at Yardley, who seemed to have moved on to the next problem of the day without a second thought.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Knowing that Carpenter was trying to psychoanalyse him put a damper on ship-to-ship communications for the first few minutes, but soon Al forgot all about the man's mission. They were Bingo and Stacker again, laughing and joking together as if no time had passed since the innocent days at Pensacola. Stacker didn't try to bring up the past, and Al wasn't going to volunteer anything. He took his friend around the base, showing him the newly upgraded simulators and the training apparatuses, and even commandeering a jeep and taking off towards the launch site. They sat on the bleachers, leaning back against the seat behind them as they stared out over the flat expanse that would be housing a rocket in a couple of months. It was fantastic to sit like this with an old buddy, bathed in the cool sunlight, enjoying each other's company and just being _happy_.

Then Stacker had to go and ruin it.

"So how's Beth?" he asked, after an affable pause that followed yet another story about his kids.

Al knew he was going white, but he couldn't help it. "I have no idea," he said tersely, trying to control himself.

"I mean in general, not this second," Stack laughed.

"I have. No idea."

Stacker sat up, leaning forward with his arms on his knees. "Aw, man!" he said. "You mean you broke up?"

Al shook his head. "Didn't have to," he said. "I was dead, remember?"

"You were M.I.A.," the other man protested. "That's not the same thing!"

"All it takes is a good lawyer to change that to M.P.D.—helps if you're sleeping with him—and from that you go to…"

Al couldn't continue, but he didn't have to. Carpenter was staring at the ground, shaking his head between dangling hands. "Man? She left you for another guy—_while you were M.I.A._? Damn it, _damn it_!"

No one had reacted quite this way before. Some of his friends had been angry on his behalf. Some had just told him to buck up and pulled the line about the other fish in the sea. Some had apologized for Beth. But Stacker looked absolutely miserable, almost guilty. He scrubbed his face with his hands.

"Oh, God, Bingo, I'm sorry! God!"

"Stop it," Al said hollowly. "Stop it. It happens. It was nobody's fault. We're both better off this way."

Stacker stared at him, his expression wretchedly stricken. "Better off? You loved her! She was the one! Oh, God, Bingo, I'm so sorry."

"I said stop it." Al hardened his voice. "You didn't make her do it."

"But I did!" Stacker said miserably. "I did. It was just after I got rotated home in '67. She asked me—she said the brass weren't being straight with her, and since I was in that firefight with you maybe I could tell her, did I think there was any chance you'd made it? And I told her… I told her…"

"Stop," Al whispered. He didn't want to hear this. He didn't want to know that the last friend he had left had given up on him, too. Had betrayed him. "Please, don't."

Stacker didn't hear him, or maybe he couldn't stop. His voice cracked as he went on. "I told her I didn't think there was a chance in hell," he said.

Al's desolation mutated into anger. "You told Beth that I was dead?" he snarled.

"Y—no! _No_! I told her that I _thought_ you were dead. Bingo, your plane went down in flames, in all of fifteen seconds. You would have had to be superhuman to eject that fast! Everyone thought you were dead. The M.I.A. tag was just a formality, because we couldn't find your body—"

"You couldn't find my body because it was en route to Hoa Lo!" Al cried, with hurt he'd thought he was done with.

"I didn't know that!" Stacker protested, and Al noted with choleric dispassion that there were tears in the ex-pilot's eyes. "How could I have known that? I would have stormed that prison myself if I'd known, Bingo. I—"

"_Al_," he said harshly, getting to his feet. "Al. Bingo died a long time ago."

He dug the key to the jeep out of his pocket and threw it down on the ground.

"I trust you can find your own way back, Captain? There's only one road out. Permission to march?"

Carpenter stared at him, anguish in his eyes. His mouth worked horribly, but no sounds came out.

"Permission to march, _sir_?" Al snapped.

The look of agony on his old friend's face was going to haunt him, but for now he didn't care. He was too angry, too tormented, and too broken to care.

"Permission… permission granted…" Carpenter choked.

Al turned crisply on his heels and began the long walk back to the base proper. As he went he didn't want to notice how Stacker crumpled in on himself in sorrow and remorse.


	14. Chapter Thirteen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Al clutched the stitch in his side and stumbled to the picnic table outside of the simulation hangar. He couldn't remember the last time he had walked so far or so fast. Probably the forced march from Mai Choi back to Cam Hoi, in the spring of '70. He hadn't been in very bad shape then. A bit underweight and weak with hunger and wounded and in a lot of pain, but still essentially a status symbol, not a challenge to be met and destroyed from the inside out. At the time he had been torn between holding on for Beth and praying for death, sure that stumbling barefoot through the jungle with an iron collar linking you to your wobbling compatriots, running _away_ from rescue, was as near to hell as you could get without actually buying the farm. Ah, the ignorance of inexperience. He had learned.

Now, he was almost as exhausted, if admittedly not even remotely as injured. Not physically, anyway. His heart was breaking. Funny, because he'd been pretty sure it was nothing but a bloody pulp by now.

He didn't know why it hurt. Everyone had thought he was dead. _Everyone_. It wasn't fair to expect Stacker to be any different. Besides, he'd told Beth what he thought back in '67, and she hadn't given up until the spring of '69, so it wasn't Stacker's fault. Or, not _just_ Stacker's fault. Dozens of people telling her over and over again that he was dead had worn down her resistance, so that when the legal nozzle had come along with his charm and his oh-so-lawyerlike timing, she had finally broken down. And the wound was still so raw, the pain still so great…

Al folded his arms on the table and buried his face in them. How much agony could one man take? Why wasn't it going away?

"Heal," he whispered futilely. "Heal, heal. Heal. Heal, heal, heal, heal, heal. Heal… _please_…"

It wasn't healing. Maybe it wouldn't. Ever. Maybe the only thing he could do was bury the pain and try to forget like he'd planned to in the first place. Which wasn't easy when people insisted on reminding him.

A hand came down on his shoulder. Sharp nails brushed him through the cotton of his uniform.

"Not you," he moaned.

"Sorry," Elsa Orsós said brightly. "No one else."

Al straightened, glowering at her. She was in the wrong place at the right time. He needed a distraction, and a fight with the programmer from the fifth dimension was like a prescription from God. "Hi," he said. "Eat any good books lately."

"I just finished Jane Eyre," Elsa said, apparently missing it. "It was very interesting."

"Yeah, it's great. One of my favorites," Al said, even before he realized he had opened his mouth.

Elsa snorted in surprise. "You read something written by a woman? What happened? Did you lose a bet?"

"You read something that wasn't new-wave crap?" Al retorted. "What happened? Did you get struck by lightning?"

"Too bad I wasn't," Elsa said. "If I had been I wouldn't have to stand here and have this conversation."

"Why are you standing here anyway?" Al asked.

She snapped her fingers. "You're right!" she said. "I should sit!"

She sat, crossing her legs in a very becoming fashion. God, she was gorgeous. And from her flashing blue eyes and her flame-colored hair to her uniform caramel tan and her diminutive stature, she was absolutely nothing like Beth. A blaze of instinctive desire gripped him and Al slipped his hand onto her firm, trim thigh.

She grabbed his wrist, digging her talon-like nails into the fleshy underside, between the tendons.

"You try that again, _hapsi_," she said pleasantly; "and you'll be picking your nose with your toes."

Al pulled his arm out of her downright dangerous grasp, rubbing the little white half-moons she had left in his skin. He whistled. "That's quite the grip you've got there, Missy," he said. "Daughter of a midwife and a vice-maker?"

"Daughter of a lawyer and a _háziasszony_," Elsa said. Then she pursed her lips condescendingly. "In American you say _housewife_."

"It's 'English', not 'American'," Al corrected.

"I'm not stupid, Calvichy. I have lived in this country for fourteen years," she said. "You do not speak English the way that people from England do. You speak an American language."

"I'm flattered—I think. Anyway, the lawyer part explains the acid tongue, but I have a hard time thinking of you as a little Hungarian girl trailing around behind a housewife."

"Why? Because all women are supposed to be feminist?" Elsa challenged.

Al surprised himself by making a sound he hadn't thought he was capable of producing. He laughed. "You're impossible!" he said.

"Nothing is impossible," Elsa said. "Not even you going into space, although I think I'll believe the story of Jack and the Giant before I think _that_ will happen."

Al whistled. "That was almost a compliment!" he said. "Did somebody slip you a chill pill this morning?"

Elsa ignored him. "Do you know that there is a man from the Navy here trying to reassign you?"

"Carpenter," Al said. Then he straightened in surprise. "How'd you know that?"

Elsa shrugged. "I'm a woman," she said. "I know everything."

"Hmph." Al tried to smooth his tiny, sweat-dampened curls. His hair was getting too long. A flash of memory—filth-matted tresses clinging to his bloodied shoulders—sent a shiver down his back. "I'm not letting them reassign me," he said.

"Oh, do you have a choice?" Elsa asked, her voice less taunting than Al would have expected. "I thought military men follow their orders."

"I think I've done enough for the Navy that they can throw me a bone now," Al muttered.

"I agree," Elsa said curtly, getting to her feet. "But do you think that that will stop them?"

Al tried to scrutinize her factual expression. What the hell was she up to, anyway? Elsa leaned forward, cupping her hand around the back of his neck and drawing his head towards her own in a way that usually indicated that a passionate kiss was called for. She moved her lips close to his ear.

"I'll tell you a secret," she said. "If you give them excuse to let you stay, they will let you stay."

"Huh?"

"They don't think you can do it," she said. "But they want you to."

Al frowned. "What do you mean, they want me to?"

She backed away, hands on her hips and disgust on her face. "You are very stupid," she said. "Stupid and also blind. You deserve this."

She walked away.

Al watched her go, confused as hell.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Elsa left Calavicci at the picnic table, but instead of returning to the simulator hangar as she had intended to, she turned a corner and moved off in the direction of the administration buildings. Calavicci's obdurate determination did him credit, but proud words were not going to change NASA's mind about him. He had to prove himself worthy. He had to show that he had, as the astronauts said, "the right stuff".

He couldn't do that unless someone gave him a chance.

She found her way to Yardley's office with the practiced steps of one who had spent the better part of a decade on this base. She had never had any personal dealings with the Space Flight administrator, but from Calavicci's records she knew that Yardley was in charge of his case. That's what it was now: a case. A problem.

It wasn't hard to imagine Calavicci as a problem. In fact, it was difficult to see him as anything but. Yet he was a man, and from the looks of things a tormented one. Elsa did not understand the pain behind the muted exclamations he had made before she had drawn him out of it, but she knew that the agony was there. Despite his assertions and the general opinion of the entire male population of Cape Canaveral she was not entirely without a heart. He had so much spirit, so much fight. He just didn't understand the battlefield.

She knocked on the door to Yardley's office, and a pleasant, absent voice ushered her in.

The middle-aged aeronautical engineer looked up in surprise. "What can I do for you… uh…"

"Orsós," she said. "Elsa Ildiko Orsós. I am a programmer for the computers."

"What can I do for you, Miss Orsós?" Yardley asked courteously.

She sat down in the chair in front of his desk. "I watch the astronauts every day," she said. "There is something that you need to know about one of them."

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Al wasn't going to stew in his misery. He couldn't. If you did that, it was a short road to insanity. So after Elsa left he got to his feet and made his way to the cafeteria. Lauren Taggert greeted him warmly, and he played off of her for a couple of minutes. To judge from her pleasured blushing he was coming across as his usual charming self, but he certainly didn't feel like it. Lunch today was penne pasta with some WASP travesty of alfredo sauce over it. Al took his food and found a table in the back corner of the room. He was so tired… physically and emotionally exhausted. His mind couldn't work anymore.

The pasta was lukewarm to the touch, and almost cold in his mouth, and it tasted vaguely of Styrofoam. Al's jaw worked methodically. Then a shadow was cast over the table.

"Bing—Al…"

Al looked up to see Carpenter standing in front of him, hesitant and apologetic.

"Have a seat," he said grimly. "I promise I won't bite."

Stacker sat. "Listen, I'm sorry for what I said. I just… I never thought she'd leave you like that. Not Beth."

"Wasn't her fault," Al muttered, speaking his mind without intending to. "Bastard took advantage of her. God, he'd better be taking care of her."

"Al… I've still got a job to do," the other man said. "We didn't even get around to talking about that."

"So talk," Al said flatly.

Carpenter clasped his hands on the tabletop. "There are a lot of opportunities out there for a man of your talents—"

"I'm fine right here," Al said.

Carpenter shook his head. "Come on, Al. We both know you can't stay here drawing a paycheque on NASA's tab and not doing anything. If you're headed for a breakdown, that's okay, but it's got to be on the Navy's bill."

"I'm not headed for a breakdown!" Al snapped. "And I'm not doing nothing, either. I've been doing equilibrium training and G-force tests and centrifuging and—"

Carpenter shook his head sadly. "Bingo, don't you get it? You're not going into space."

"Why not?" Al challenged, his eyes flashing.

Stacker frowned in confusion. "Yardley told me you two went through this," he said. "You've got claustrophobia."

"So what?"

"So you can't go into space."

"You say that and Yardley said that," Al told him; "but one of the flight surgeons and his pet headshrinker both told me it's easy to lick claustrophobia." That was a fib. They'd both said it was possible. Neither had said a thing about easy. Judging from Al's own attempts, it was going to be hard as anything he'd ever done. Maybe impossible. "That's what I'm doing. I'm going into space."

"I'm sorry, Al, but just saying you're doing it isn't good enough," Carpenter said. "You've been through a lot, and obviously the trauma—"

"Oh, you can take that and shove it up your tailpipe right now!" Al exclaimed angrily. "Let's get one thing straight, desk jockey. I'm not a delicate little debutante who's going to go into convulsions because of my terrible, terrible traumatic experience! I'm a man and an officer and nothing even remotely important happened in Vietnam. I lost some time, which is why I've got to take full bird crap from some shavetail I taught more about women than he could have picked up in ten years on his own. That's all. Now, you've got the authority to be a real pain in the neck, but that kind of garbage I'm not going to listen to! You start patronizing me, and God damn it, I'll tear you into so many pieces that you'll wind up in a museum, labelled _The First Human Jigsaw Puzzle, Product of Calavicci_!"

Stacker's eyes narrowed in rage. "Look, I came here genuinely trying to help you, you ingrate, and all you've done since I got here is bite my head off! I thought we were friends, but you know what? You're right! You're right! The Bingo I knew _did_ die in Vietnam, and I don't know who you are, man, but you're nobody I'd cross the street for, not even to save your miserable life!"

The words stung. Al gave Carpenter the Calavicci Evil Eye. "I wouldn't want you to," he snarled. "Now go to hell and let me eat my lunch."

So saying he filled his mouth with pasta and chewed viciously, trying to imagine that the other man wasn't there.

It wasn't easy. Stack's storm-clouded face suddenly went white, his eyes wilting in grief and pity. "Oh, _Bingo_…" he whispered, staring at Al's hands.

Al looked down at the noodles he was holding and realized to his dismay that, distracted and miserable as he had been, he had forgotten the new habit of using utensils. Shaking with horror and shame, he fled the cafeteria as quickly as he could, closing his ears to his old friend's entreaties.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Al climbed out of the bathtub, wet and shivering. He hugged himself as he went into the bedroom and pulled on his bathrobe. He hadn't even bothered to sign out before leaving the base. He had just driven straight for his apartment, as fast as the Ferrari would go, and got himself under the shower as if he could wash away the pain and humiliation of the day that was supposed to have been so good.

Stacker was right. He was never going into space. He had alienated his last friend and destroyed his last chance of success. Look at him. He was no better than an animal, unable to control his own mind, unable to curb his emotions. He even ate like an animal. And why not? After years of living like an animal, of being beaten and branded and caged like an animal, of howling and screaming like an animal, was it so impossible that he had finally turned into one?

He couldn't take it anymore. He was too tired to fight anymore. Time to admit defeat. Al went into the living room. He picked up the phone and dialled the Cape.


	15. Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Elsa gripped the wheel of her little brown Volkswagen with such force that her knuckles were white disks rimmed in red and the bands of her rings cut into the flesh of her fingers. There were no words, Hungarian or English, to express her fury. While she sat in Yardley's office, determined to help this lecherous pilot, she had listened in horror to one half of the conversation as Calavicci had thrown away his chances without even trying to fight.

It was the lack of a struggle that angered her. You couldn't just lie down and die! If her parents had given up when the fires of war had swept through their country, or when poverty threatened to swallow them, Elsa wouldn't be here now. She would have starved on the streets or languished in a Budapest orphanage. She would be a cleaning woman scrubbing other people's stairs now, or a beggar. If Papa had given up when it had become plain that his daughter could not pursue higher education in Europe, she would be the wife of some storekeeper, balancing his books and polishing his shoes and raising his children. If she had given up her dream of working with computers, she would be toiling in a clinic in upstate New York, weary and unhappy. If Andrew hadn't given up…

If Andrew hadn't given up she wouldn't be driving down this unfamiliar street, headed for the apartment of a man she hardly knew, bent on whipping him back into shape—by force, if she had to. She wasn't going to let Calavicci quit. He had come through too much to surrender now, just because his mind was under strain and his fear attacking him. She had not received the news in time to help Andrew, but she could help Calavicci. If it killed them both, she wasn't going to let him give up.

As she drove she primed herself for battle.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

The linoleum was cool against his bare feet. Al sat on the floor in the narrow space between the refrigerator and the dividing wall that separated the kitchen from the living room. It made no sense, none at all, but the three white walls that penned him in weren't oppressive now. They were comforting, because they limited his surroundings. They limited his world. If only they could limit his problems, too.

He didn't know what to do. He couldn't deal with this. So many decisions, day in and day out, and so many new situations to cope with. He didn't know how to handle them. Years of having everything decided for him had weakened his capacity to make up his mind. All he could do was muddle blindly through choice after choice, and lately he had been making all of the wrong ones.

The second he'd got off the phone with Yardley he had regretted that decision. It was definitely the wrong one. How could he have thought that throwing away his chances at NASA was going to make anything better? The thought of space flight was the only thing that had kept him going for months now. It was the only thing that had finally got him out of hospital. That and sheer livid determination.

He wished he could call Yardley back, say he hadn't meant what he said about resigning, tell him that Calavicci had every intention of making it to the moon. But he couldn't. It was over. He had blown it. Thrown it away just like he'd thrown away everything he'd ever cared about. Space was only the most recent example. There was Beth. And Lisa. Trudy. Pop. Momma. He never realized the value of things until they were gone forever.

He thought wistfully, and not for the first time, that he could have died in Vietnam. Any one of a thousand times he could have died. That time when Quon had hung him upside down for two days, then let the guards beat him with switches cut from a thorn-bush until there wasn't a patch of whole skin anywhere on his body. The weeks he had been shaking with ague as malaria raged through his blood, too weak to fight it off and left without medication or nursing or even clean water. Titi's cruel and horrifically imaginative games… that time in the scorching summer of '68 when cholera had ripped through the ranks at Briarpatch… take your pick of the interrogations at the Hilton… that first beating, courtesy of the North Vietnamese welcoming committee of long-traumatized and therefore vicious villagers… hell, he could have died in the crash. That would have been kindest of all. If only he had caught that missile instead of Chip…

A sickening pang of guilt twisted his stomach. Didn't that mean that he wished Chip had taken _his_ place?

He drew his hand across his brow, trying to scrub away the black thoughts. His bony knees crept closer to his washboard chest, and he hugged them with thin, ropey-muscled arms. His vivid imagination fell into old patterns. She was there, her love like a blanket of peace around him. It didn't matter how much they hurt him. It didn't matter what they did. She was still there, on the other side of that great, wide ocean, staring out at the sea and thinking of him…

A whimper welled up in his throat. Staring out to sea and planning her wedding. Her second wedding. A dry sob of desolation shook him. What kind of a God let things like this happen? What was the point of God, if he couldn't stop—if he couldn't be bothered to stop the Devil from turning the earth into a junior Hell?

_Junior_ Hell? Sure. Fire and brimstone and demons couldn't be worse than this forsaken, accursed existence.

He shuddered. He could hear the "V" now, coming up and down the corridors of the New Guy Village at Hoa Lo, hammering on the doors with their billy clubs, just to make sure that the feverish, pain-wracked, terrified inmates didn't get any sleep that night. _Welcome to purgatory_, the pounding seemed to say. _Abandon all hopes of a normal life, ye who don't die here_.

Hang on, that wasn't in his mind. The noise was in his ears. Someone was knocking on the door to his apartment. Al froze, not sure what to do. Nobody had knocked on that door since he'd moved in. The overnight houseguests he'd had had all come in with him, not after.

The knocking persisted. Instincts from another lifetime finally resurfaced. Al had to answer the door. He got unsteadily to his feet and straightened his bathrobe, making sure it was closed as snugly over his chest as possible. He went to the door, barking his shin against one of the plastic-upholstered aluminium chairs in the gloom. He put one hand on the smooth wood, and the other on the deadbolt.

"Who's there?" he called.

"Open the door and you'll see," said a familiar contralto voice.

Sheer astonishment had the door open before Al realized that he really didn't want to see her. She stood in the corridor, hands on her hips and a very firm expression on her face.

"You are a fool, Calvichy. A stupid fool," she said abruptly.

Al blinked at the non sequitur. There's the signpost, up ahead. Your next stop? The Twilight Zone.

"_Excuse me_?"

"You heard me." She tossed her head so that her red hair shone, and looked him over. "Where are your clothes?"

"What kind of question is that? What are you doing here?" Al demanded.

"You need talking to," Elsa said. "Are you going to leave me standing out here until I take root and start growing apples from my fingertips?"

"How did you find my address?" Al asked, still hostile .

"I told you," she said; "I can get into your records. Easy. Now let me in."

"I don't let strange women into my house," groused Al.

"That's not what I hear," Elsa said dryly.

"I didn't say anything about women I don't know," Al corrected sourly. "I said _strange_."

The nuance was lost on her. Nothing like a patchy grasp of idiom. She stepped forward, into his airspace. Al backed off instinctively, unwittingly giving her the room that she needed in order to slip past him.

"Close the door," she ordered. "And get some lights in here!"

"Can't you ever mind your own business?" Al asked, glaring at this intruder now strolling nonchalantly through his house.

"Can't you follow simple instructions?" Elsa retorted. "Close the door."

Al stared at her in disbelief. She had to be the single most pigheaded, unpredictable woman he had ever met, but what the hell was she doing here?

"Why did you do it?" she demanded, switching on the kitchen light and marching through to the living room, where she yanked open the curtains to let in the gathering sunset.

"Do what?"

"Tell Yardley you want to resign."

"What the hell choice did I have?" Al asked. Then he paused. "How do you know about that?"

"I was in his office when you telephoned," she said, coming back to face him. "I was in his office telling him that you could be an astronaut."

"_What_?"

"I was telling him that you could be an astronaut, and that he should not wash you out because of one little incident in the simulator," she said. "He was about to agree that you should get another try, when you telephoned and ruined it!"

Al didn't know what to think, much less what to say. She was standing up for him? Elsa Orsós the Snow Queen? But he didn't want her interference…

"Who the hell asked you to stick your nose into my business?" he snapped.

"Hah! If you ran a store the way you run your business you'd be bankrupt!" Elsa exclaimed. "What are you doing, giving up so easy?"

"Believe me, nothing about this is easy," Al muttered, trying to walk away from her. Not that there was anywhere he could go in a three hundred square foot apartment.

"Hah! Sure! It's always easiest to quit, to run away. It's much harder to stay and fight!"

Easy to die. Hard to live. Major Quon's taunting voice rang in his ears. _I am going to teach you how hard it can be!_

"Get out of here," Al snarled, gesturing at the door. "Go back to whatever backwater European hellhole you came from and leave me alone!"

"Leave you alone so you can give up on something you wanted—or did you not really want it?" She tilted her chin fearlessly. "Maybe the Navy tried to pressure you into it, and you're glad to get out?"

"I wanted it as much as I've wanted anything in a long time," Al snapped. Almost anything. "But I can't have it, so drop it and go away!"

"You want it, you fight for it!" Elsa cried. "You can't give up, you have to fight for it! You give up, and they win without trying!"

He stared at her. It was like having a redheaded incarnation of his mind across from him, the strong, determined part of his mind that had kept him alive. The part of his mind that had healed his broken body. The part of his mind he wanted to shut down, because it made him more ashamed than ever of the other voice, the cowardly voice, the one that wanted so desperately to lie down and die.

"Well?" Elsa said. "Are you going to give up?"

Anger and desolation washed over him. Over him, under him, around him, and through him. "Yes," he said, his voice hardened against the tremor that wanted to undermine it. "_Yes_. I give up. I quit. I can't fight anymore. Now go away and leave me alone."

Her distress and emphatic conviction were tangibly transfigured. Her face hardened into a mask of rage.

"How do you live with yourself? You want it! You're a fighter! You fought, you survived terrible things, and now you cannot even face a little fear?"

"This isn't about claustrophobia!" Al exclaimed. "Nobody wants me to go into space. I can't fight everybody. I'm not even—"

He caught himself just in time. He had been about to say _human anymore_. He shuddered. That was too much information to share with anyone, especially an enemy. He turned his back on Elsa so that he didn't need to look at her cold eyes and wonder what she was thinking.

"Hah! Nobody wants you in space? Too many people want you in space! When the other astronauts figure that out you will have trouble—but not as much trouble as you are giving yourself now! You stupid fool, if you would just pick yourself up and—"

Al whirled on her. "Pick myself up? What the hell do you know about picking yourself up? Have you ever been down, you spoiled little Hungarian brat? Have you ever dragged yourself up from absolute bottom just to have some nozzle throw you right back down? Every time you think you're finally ahead, you've finally got it made, then along comes a bolt straight from Hell and everything's gone again! How many times do you expect me to get up? Forget it! I'm down for the count! Let me pass out! The fight is over. Round, match and championship to the Devil!"

Elsa's anger faltered briefly in favor of a haunted look. "Boxing…" she murmured.

"Yeah, boxing! Just like life! Except I was actually _good_ at boxing!" Al snapped.

The rage was back. "You come out of the prison camps just to give up! Why did you come home at all, if you are just going to bury yourself in America?"

"I ask myself that question every goddamned morning!"

"So stop feeling sorry for yourself and do something!"

They were both shouting now, overcome with emotions. Al couldn't understand Elsa's reaction. It made no sense that she should explode like this. Why the hell did she even care?

"I am doing something!" he roared. "I'm going back to my boats where I belong—just like you've been saying since I got here!"

She started to yell in what he could only presume was Hungarian, letting loose a tirade that Al didn't understand. The furious exclamations grated against his raw nerves.

"Aw, shut up!" he snapped. "I quit. It's over."

With a shriek of rage she raised her hand to strike him. He caught her wrist and stopped the blow. For a moment they stood thus, frozen like a sculpture of some Olympian struggle. Her cold, flashing blue eyes and his stormy dark ones held one another thrall, two rods of a tesla coil with the tension crackling between them. Then Elsa's other hand shot up and gripped the back of Al's neck, and suddenly she was kissing him, violently and passionately.

He reciprocated almost without processing what was happening, his fingers finding her hips and drawing her body against his. The kiss continued, fierce and electric. One small, nimble hand worked in his hair. The other frantically clutched his back.

Inevitably they had to surface for air, and Al's lips formed a protest.

"You want to leave now," he gasped.

Elsa shook her head and kissed him again, harder than before. Then suddenly she was pushing him, driving him ahead of her as they embraced. A very tiny part of Al's mind protested that he didn't want to sleep with her, and they were both going to regret it, but that was belied by every thought he had ever had about her. She obviously wanted it, and he knew he needed it. He gripped her tighter, his lips working hungrily against hers.

They were in the bedroom now. Elsa was fumbling with the belt of his robe even before he thought to find her zipper, and suddenly they were on the bed, Elsa pressing against his abdomen as she wriggled out of the dress he held open for her. Al wrapped his arms around her chest and rolled them both over. His mouth still moved frenetically. Talon-tipped fingers tangled themselves in his hair.

And then for a long time he didn't think about NASA, or Vietnam, or even Beth.


	16. Chapter Fifteen

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

There was always a moment of disorientation in the limbo between slumber and wakefulness. Sometimes, in that moment, he was back in the Manhattan tenement, huddling in bed and listening to Momma and Papa arguing in the kitchen. Sometimes he was next to Stork Davis under the thin orphanage-issue blankets. Or in a hard bunk in the bowels of an aircraft carrier just hours from flying out on a hot mission. Or lying on a heap of dirt and dead leaves in the corner of an enemy hooch, with his hands tightly manacled behind his back and the mosquitoes feeding mercilessly on his torn and sunburned flesh. Or curled around Beth, which was worst of all.

Today he was in his narrow bed at the Academy. He could hear the soft whistling noises that Dave Heeley always made when he was dreaming. Al grinned lazily and opened his eyes.

When he realized that the sound was coming from a lissom, unclothed woman lying with her flame-colored head on his bare chest, he awoke with a start. She had to get out of here! He was on his last warning, as usual, and if the drill instructor caught him with a girl in the barracks it would be so long Calavicci!

Then he realized where and when he was, and he settled back with a contented sigh.

The dryad stirred a little and murmured something in her sleep. He stroked her hair, brushing it away from her face as his drowsy mind tried to recall how they had come to be in this position. What was her name, again?

The last bright tresses were pushed away, and he took in the familiar tanned face of Elsa Orsós. Now he remembered. She had come to bawl him out for resigning, and they had wound up in bed. Oh, _boy_, had they wound up in bed! He had had some wild nights in his time, and yesterday was right near the top of the list!

He grinned and brushed his lips along one of her exquisitely pruned eyebrows. Funny how the feminists were often the most cosmetically preoccupied. He glanced at the clock radio. It was not quite five-thirty. Of course, they _had_ retired awfully early…

He wondered if she'd be interested in a little encore—and then decided against it. She'd probably want to start at square one, with the dance of hostility followed by the explosions of rage and the screaming and the attempts at violence. He didn't think he had the energy to go through all of that before breakfast.

His pride that he was aware of the fact that his stomach was snarling was quickly overshadowed by the guilty realization that he hadn't had any supper yesterday. Or much lunch, either, after that final humiliation in the cafeteria. Oh, well. It didn't matter anymore.

He slipped out from under Elsa and went into the bathroom, passing scattered bits of clothing along the way. He rubbed the back of his neck as he started up the shower. It had been great, but what was going to happen when she woke up?

While he washed, Al found himself reliving the argument that had culminated in the excessively impassioned encounter. Elsa had been furious because he'd resigned from NASA—why? Why did she care? Given their track record of animosity, Al would have expected her to be delighted by the news of his imminent departure.

Much more important than niggling questions about Elsa's motives, however, was the fact that she was right. Al couldn't give up. He had to fight. If he just walked away he would never forgive himself. He was finding it hard enough to pardon yesterday's weakness. Oh, well. Crawling to Yardley, eating his words and begging for his place back, would surely be penance enough.

The shame and despair of yesterday had fled with the exhaustion, and Al knew he couldn't give up. It was just like it had been over There. Quon could break you, make you wail and scream and beg for death, but when the torture was over and the agony abated a little you had to bounce back so that if he wanted to make you obey, or answer his questions, he would have to start all over again. That was how it worked. Sometimes you broke, like he had done yesterday, but you just had to bounce back. And he would. He was going to do whatever it took. If he had to bare his black soul to Mortmain, if he had to go grovelling to every administrator in the organization, if he had to eat six meals a day he would do it. He was going to qualify for Apollo 20. If he didn't make it, it wouldn't be because of anything he had failed to do.

Al turned off the shower, got out of the tub, and started to grapple with his hair. The mirror slowly lost its fog and his reflection melted into being in front of him. Damp, disobedient dark hair that grew tamer with each swipe of the blow-dryer. Brown eyes that were neither as bright nor as mirthful as they once had been. A face, still handsome but bony now, the cheekbones standing out against the skin and the temples faintly shadowed. No wonder Ana Fefner had recognized him and Mark Carpenter hadn't. He looked much more like the underfed, angular orphan than he did well-muscled, athletic Bingo.

His eyes travelled down to the prominent collarbones, once again mirror images of one another, and then to the ribs. They could still be easily counted, and he could watch his pulse in the twitching of his sunken stomach. Ugly scars marred the skin: some smooth, some puckered; some long, some broad, some short, some narrow, some faded to almost-invisible white, some still brilliantly tinged with red, some made by knives, some by whips, others by rubber or bamboo or nylon ropes, some even made by surgeon's scalpels. They were all hideous. _Hideous_.

Al finished with his hair as quickly as possible, and left the bathroom. It held the only mirror in the apartment, and once he was out of there he didn't have to look at himself. He went back into the bedroom, pausing to admire the rise and fall of Elsa's shoulders. Her tan was surprisingly even, without any garment lines, at least on her torso. The amusing image of the straight-laced programmer on a topless beach was quickly supplanted by the logical deduction that she was a regular at a local tanning salon.

He got out a fresh duty uniform and donned it, from the soft cotton Navy-issue undergarments to the crisply-pressed khaki shirt. He would have preferred something a little more colorful, but it was clean and whole, and smelled faintly of detergent. He felt more confident the second he put it on.

It was by now almost six-thirty. He would have to be at the base by eight if he wanted to catch Yardley before he got embroiled in the business of the day. Hopefully before he set anything in motion with regards to Al's reassignment. That still gave him time to whip up a good breakfast for Elsa and himself. In his experience women loved it when a guy cooked them breakfast the morning after a romantic liaison.

He dug out the skillet and set about making crepes. This particular recipe he had learned from Beth's mother. Beth had always said he was the only person on the planet who could hold a candle to her mother's crepes…

But he was going to forget about Beth, and he was going to move on. He ransacked the fridge looking for toppings, but berries were out of season and he would never have though t to buy them anyway. Berries were escape food, a brief respite from cold, glutinous, weevil-infested rice before Quon's cronies found you and hauled you back to face the music. There had been a woman tracker with a nose like a wolf and the instincts of a tiger. If it hadn't been for her, Al reflected, he might actually have got away that one time…

Never underestimate a woman. A Hungarian curse sounded in the bedroom. Al abandoned his hunt and his black thoughts to follow the noise.

Elsa was awake, sitting in the middle of the dishevelled bed and staring around her in horror. Al grinned.

"Good morning!" he said.

She whirled, startled and momentarily frozen, and then gathered the sheets up to her chin, tugging them around her body. "_Elmenni_!" she cried. "_Menj a francba_!"

"Signora, she no speak-a the Engalish?" Al asked, putting on the thickest parody of an Italian accent that he could muster.

"Go away!" Elsa snapped. "Go to hell!"

He laughed. "Sure. The bathroom's through that door. Breakfast in twenty minutes."

"_Bazd meg!_" she cried. "_Mars ki innen_!"

"You really will get better results if I can understand what you're saying," Al said mildly.

"Out!" she shrieked.

Banished from his own bedroom, Al returned to the kitchen, chuckling softly to himself. This was a new one. The girls he'd been spending time with lately had all had a very easygoing attitude towards the whole thing. He hadn't had a morning show like this since his Academy days. Maybe even before that.

He settled on apples and cinnamon for the crepes, and started slicing the fruit into fine slivers. He was just putting the finishing touches on the two plates when Elsa came out of the bedroom, fully-clothed and dry-haired, her arms crossed defensively over her abdomen.

"Should we try it again?" Al asked. "Good morning."

She glared at him and muttered something under her breath in Hungarian.

"Didn't catch that, sorry," Al said. "Breakfast." He held up the plates for inspection, then set them on the table. "How do you like your coffee?"

"I said, you are a horrible person. You put a spell on me."

"I put a—_you_ were the aggressor! Don't even try to deny it!" Al reigned himself in and smirked. "Having some morning-after regrets?"

She gestured helplessly, anger clear in her bearing and her voice. "I have never done such a thing before! I said I never would—you are the son of the Devil!"

Al gaped. "What, you've _never_…"

She waved him off. "Of course I have!" she said. "Of course! But not with someone I work with—what have I done? Now everyone will know, no one will respect me—"

Al chuckled. "I'm not going to tell anyone," he said. "If that's what you're worried about."

"And you will act as if I am just a—a—a—" She stamped one foot in frustration. "I don't know how to say it in English!" she exclaimed.

Al had a sneaking suspicion he knew what word she was groping for, but he wasn't about to let her know that he was anywhere near such a thought. "Just another woman, instead of a professional and an expert in her field?" he asked.

"That too!" Elsa cried. "Oh, I am a fool!"

She turned to flee, but Al caught her arm. "Hey, hang on," he said, turning her towards him. "There's nothing wrong with a one-night stand. We can both keep going just like it didn't happen. Besides," he said, leaning in and kissing her cheek; "I thought I was leaving NASA, wasn't I?"

Fresh anger flashed in her eyes. "You're not leaving! Today you will go and tell Yardley that you did not mean it!"

Al felt a flush of pride at having her so well cased. "He might not listen," he warned.

"He will listen!" Elsa snapped. "And you will stay. And tell _everyone_…" She slapped her forehead with the heal of her hand.

"I'm not going to tell anybody what happened last night. Even if I was that kind of guy—which I'm _not_—you've seen things I don't want you to tell anyone."

She nodded knowingly. "Christmas," she said. "So now we are even?"

"Exactly. I swear on my sacred honor, I will never talk about last night again." Al stroked her hair with his knuckles. "Now, would you join me for breakfast, Miss Orsós?"

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

They ate over a provisional truce, and then Elsa left. Al tidied up the apartment, erasing all evidence of what had transpired. Then he steeled his courage, climbed into his car, and made his way to the base.

It was weird: Yardley's secretary sent him through without so much as a question, almost as if he was expected. The Associate Administrator was poring over some kind of schematic, making notes on it with a pencil and a compass. Al stood watching him for a moment, then cleared his throat when it became plain that he hadn't been noticed.

Yardley looked up and smiled. "Calavicci," he said. "Good morning."

"Good morning, sir," Al said. "Sir, yesterday—"

"Close the door, please, Calavicci," Yardley said. "Gossip travels quickly enough around here without giving it a leg up."

Al closed the door, then took the chair that Yardley was indicating he should. "Sir, when I called you—"

"You were at the end of a difficult day, and didn't mean what you said?" Yardley asked.

Al's brows furrowed in confusion. "Exactly…"

"I know. Furthermore, you don't think it's fair that I disallow your participation in the space program just because of an isolated incident in the simulator."

"I… everyone should have a second chance, sir. Innocent until proven guilty, and I didn't have any trouble up until that point—" At least, not any trouble that anyone else had noticed.

"Calavicci, I'll be straight with you. I don't think you have what it takes, as much as I wish that you did. But you're right. Everyone should have a second chance, and fortunately for you, you aren't the only person who feels that you have the potential to qualify for space flight."

Al had been expecting a lot more opposition, and he stared blankly at the other man. "So it isn't to late to take back what I said?"

Yardley shook his head. "When you called I was all set to get the reassignment in motion. As luck would have it, however, the other participant in the meeting you interrupted felt that I should wait."

"Carpenter?"

"No. As a matter of fact, Carpenter seems to think you need very serious psychotherapy. 'Help', he called it. He's gone back to Kings Bay to file his report."

Al flinched. He couldn't blame Stacker for thinking he was crazy, but it still hurt. One more friend he had lost forever. After yesterday they were going to have a hard time looking each other in the eye, much less actually relaxing and having fun together again.

"It would stand you in good stead if you started sessions with Doctor Mortmain at once," Yardley said. "In fact, if you don't seek treatment for your claustrophobia I'm not going to be able to condone keeping you with us, no matter how many chances a man should get. It isn't going to be easy to stay, Calavicci. You're going to have to work for it."

"I can work for it," Al said fiercely. "I'm not going to wash out."

Yardley smiled. "I respect that," he said. "Determination is half the battle."

"I excel at determination."

"Unfortunately, the rest of the battle involves Doctor Mortmain," Yardley said. "From what Doctor Wagner has told me you aren't very amenable to the idea of seeing a psychiatrist."

"I've seen just about every psychiatrist in the country," Al said dryly. "The routine gets a little old after a while."

"You've sought treatment before?"

"No, I've had treatment foisted on me. Treatment for problems I don't even have. But I am a little claustrophobic, I admit that. If I have to see Mortmain, I will. I want this, sir."

"Glad to hear it," Yardley said. "And I won't be the only one."

Al spared a puzzled thought for this remark, but he had a more pressing question. "Sir?" he said. "Who stood up for me?"

"One of the programmers," Yardley said. "Told me she watched the astronauts every day, and she had been watching you. Said you were quicker than any of them, brave, dedicated. In fact, she called you the best man we've had in the program since Aldrin. She really laid it on thick. I've seen professional yes-men with less conviction. Then after you phoned she told me you had had a difficult day and didn't know what you were talking about, and she promised that you'd be in this morning to take it all back, so I should just pretend the conversation hadn't happened."

Al was stunned. Someone had actually bothered to take his side. And not just any someone. "A programmer?" he said. "Elsa Orsós?"

"That's the one," Yardley said absently, turning back to his schematic.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Elsa's mind was not on her work. She was thinking of Calavicci, and of what had happened last night. She was ashamed of her lack of control, angry at herself for behaving as she had, but honestly was the Hungarian way, and she could not say that she was sorry that she had slept with him. Now that it was done she realized how she had wanted to do it almost since they had met. They were both so strong-willed, so bold, so arrogant. She had not been able to help imaging what it would be like to lie with a man as stubborn and defiant as herself, and now she had to admit that the reality had been everything the dream was and more.

This morning, however, had not fit at all with her expectations. There had been five men before Calavicci—over a span of fourteen years. Andrew had always loved to wake her with a gentle kiss, and then they would sit in bed together, petting and talking, teaching one another their respective languages with English as a bridge. Her first partner had been partial to early-morning reprises. Two had made a habit of thanking her. The most recent one had not lasted past the first catastrophic night: when Elsa had finally awakened he had been gone to work, not even bothering to leave a note. He had tried to woo her back, but she wasn't stupid.

To awaken to find the man that you had spent the night with cooking breakfast for you, however? Despite her hard words, which were born of shock and embarrassment, Elsa had been shocked and touched by Calavicci's consideration. It had been almost like having a husband.

Elsa banished that thought angrily. She didn't need a husband: she was self-sufficient, strong and capable. She didn't need any man to take care of her, and certainly not to command her.

Another part of her brain whispered that there was more to marriage than that. There was companionship, coming home to more than an empty apartment and a bowl full of tropical fish and supper for one. There was needing someone, and knowing that someone needed you. There were children—

No, she didn't want children! Children tied you down. If the husband didn't turn you into a domestic slave, the children would. Still, there was the soft, milky smell of a small baby, the way a toddler twined her fingers in your hair as she hugged your neck, the battle-cry of a little boy racing across the lawn… No. No, she didn't want children.

"Miss Orsós?"

She turned at the soft address. Calavicci stood a little behind her, hands behind his back and feet together, looking at once respectful and mocking.

"What do you want?" she demanded.

"I've just come from talking to Yardley," he said.

"And?"

"And he's willing to give me another shot at the program," he told her, shrugging a little.

She smiled triumphantly. "I told you so!"

He scowled, and she knew he wasn't pleased that she was right.

"But you are glad," she said. "It is what you want: to go into space."

"Yes," he said, and there was something vacant and yet almost fierce about his expression as he spoke. "Yes, it's what I want."

There was an awkward pause.

"He also told me you went to see him yesterday," Calavicci said at last. "That you stood up for me and told him to give me another chance."

"I told you that yesterday!"

"Yeah, well, we weren't exactly listening to each other yesterday, now were we?" he asked.

"Hah! You heard what you wanted to!"

"So did you!" he rejoined.

"And you got what you wanted too!" she cried, unable to help herself.

His eyes went studiously blank and his lip curled into a furtive smile. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said. She remembered abruptly that he had said he was never going to talk about last night again.

"You keep your promises," she said. "Maybe I was wrong."

"The sign is nigh! The four Horsemen of the Apocalypse approach! Elsa Ildiko Orsós admits she was wrong!" he cried melodramatically. Then he sobered, suddenly looking more like a nervous and self-conscious youth than a stubborn, arrogant astronaut. "Listen, Elsa… Miss Orsós, I just wanted to say thanks," he murmured. "If you hadn't interfered, I'd… I'd be on my way to Georgia now on a full psyche workup order. I really want to go into space, you know."

She let her eyes soften. "I know," she said. "You just needed to realize it."

He nodded, his lips working soundlessly. Then he blinked resolutely. "Anyway," he said; "thanks."

"What are colleagues for?" she asked.

"Yeah, exactly," he said, grinning and regaining his air of confidence. "So what are you working on?"

She gestured at the console she had been fiddling with. "The computer," she said. "You know nothing about computers."

"You could teach me," he suggested.

She shook her head firmly. "You don't need to know how to fix them, just how to work them. And before you'll really need to know that you have to qualify for a mission."

He smirked. "That's a no?" he said.

"That's a no," she confirmed.

He shrugged. "Worth a try," he said. "See you around?"

She shrugged back at him, and turned to her work. He watched her for a minute, then moved off. It seemed to Elsa that there was more spring in his heavy step than she had ever seen there before.


	17. Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Time flew by. During the months in and out of Balboa Naval Hospital Al had grown accustomed to hours that stretched endlessly by, days marked only by meals and injections, and weeks that crawled in a never-ending string of loathsome therapy sessions. In Vietnam time had hardly seemed to exist, much less actually pass. Those lost years seemed at once a lifetime and almost nothing at all, at least during waking hours. When he was busy with the rigors of training, trying to catch up to men who had gained another month's head start, his captivity was a forgotten thing, haunting him only in the tiny physical reminders like the ache deep in his left shoulder. As long as he was active and occupied, there was nothing to remember.

Elsa Orsós had shown no interest in resuming any kind of physical relationship: she seemed content to call it a one-night stand and move on. Al would never have admitted it to her, but he wished she wanted to take it further. She was gorgeous, she was intelligent, and she was great in bed. As nice as the girls he had picked up since were, none of them were the kind of lady you could talk to about science or literature or even current events. Elsa was. He found himself spending as much time as possible on her end of the hangar, observing while the Apollo 19 crew in the Command Module Simulator. She finally seemed to accept that he wasn't trying to put the make on her every waking moment, which was actually ironic when you stopped to think about it, considering the amount of time he was spending reliving their encounter. Nevertheless, though they still had rather _heated_ discussions, they were now able to occupy the same room with minimal bloodshed. They even had lunch together a couple of times—in the cafeteria, which pretty much put a damper on any romantic potential, but at least they got a chance to talk. As it turned out they had a fair bit in common. Elsa had a little background in chemistry from her days in pre-med at Columbia. Al had read the classics that she treated as her bible of the English language. Neither of them had any other friends at the Cape.

NASA filled his days and beautiful women his nights. With something to strive for and little pleasures to remind him that it was good to be alive, Al was finally starting to cobble together some kind of semblance of a normal and almost fulfilling life. The black moods came less often, and the nightmares began to fade. He was almost starting to believe that you could have some kind of control over your life after all.

Or maybe not, he reflected, standing on one foot with his arms extended to either side like a drunk caught on the freeway. On the floor next to him knelt the physiotherapist charged with overseeing yet another check-up to which the other astronauts weren't subjected. The thirty-something sadist ran firm, invasive hands over Al's calf.

"Muscle tone looks good," he said. "Have you been doing the exercises that Doctor Loughton gave you?"

"I have my own exercises," Al said. Just because he had to cooperate didn't mean that he had to be cheerful about it. "Can you hurry up? My foot is starting to die of boredom."

"Go ahead and switch," the therapist said. Al complied, setting down his left leg and lifting his right. "It's healed very straight," the man observed.

"It better have," Al said. They had had to operate three times to repair seven poorly healed fractures in the tibia and fibula alone. The VC had made a couple of clumsy attempts at setting the early ones, until one day it had occurred to Quon that if they didn't tend his leg he couldn't run. Over the course of six years' captivity he had also twisted the ankle four times, broken bones in the foot and the toes more times than he could count, and even, during one especially bad month of ropes and chains and wooden gallows, had the knee dislocated.

The physiotherapist was finished feeling him up, and he got to his feet.

"Hold that position," he said, scrawling some notes on Al's chart. "You need to get back on the exercises you were _prescribed_," he said condescendingly. "Flexibility is just as important as strength."

"Oh, I'm flexible. You have no idea how flexible." Al scowled. His knee was quivering, protesting the unrealistic demands being placed upon it. His stance wavered and he opened his hands to compensate.

"I'm sure you are," the younger man said; "but you need to keep it that way. Otherwise as the ligaments heal—"

Al's weak ankle wobbled and rolled inward, sending him sprawling onto the blue gymnastics mat with a sharp oath.

"Not quite as strong as the other one yet," the physiotherapist observed. He bent to offer Al his hand.

Al pretended that he couldn't see it and got to his feet on his own, resisting the urge to massage his aching hip. "You're in the wrong line of work," he said sourly. "With that kind of deductive reasoning you could have been with the FBI."

"No need to be hostile," the man said brightly. "I'm just trying to make a point."

"You're here to confirm I don't need therapy, not to make points," Al said.

"Sit down on the ball, feet shoulder-width apart," the therapist instructed, indicating a large rubber ball. Frowning, Al complied. It took him a minute to balance, his bare feet splayed on the ground and his hands on the ball. A hard finger poked him in the small of the back. "Sit up straight. It's okay to let go: I won't let you fall."

"I'm not going to fall," Al muttered. He resented being treated like an errant first-grader. Or an invalid. That was worse. He let go of the ball and straightened himself. The hands ran up his back, cold even through the cloth of his undershirt.

"Straighter."

Al tried.

"Straighter. Come on, straighten your shoulders."

Oh. That was what the nozzle was talking about. "I can't," Al said flatly.

"Sure you can! Straighten up! The idea is to get the spine into a nice smooth –conformation, with the neck parallel to the shoulder blades!" The physiotherapist tried to manipulate Al's upper back into the desired position. "Stop resisting," he said. "I can stand here all day."

"And I could sit here all day, but that's not going to straighten out," said Al. "I can't do that."

"Don't be silly! Just try it."

Moron. "Look, I can't. I've got a permanent stoop, and it isn't going to straighten out, so you might as well get your thumbs out of my ribs!" Al snapped impatiently. Something twisted in his abdomen. He was bent like an old man. He would never stand up straight again. It was a consequence of the tiger cage and countless beatings. He grinned toothily at the physiotherapist, covering up his hurt. "Heck, that's nothing!" he said. "They say Admiral McCain's son'll never be able to lift his arms above his head again. Me, I can only lift mine up to here." He levelled them at shoulder height. "I used to be able to get them all the way up here!" Then he moved them straight up into the air, smirking.

"You're impossible, Lieutenant Commander Calavicci," the man said, laughing a little.

"So they tell me!" Al said with a cocky smile.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM

It was hard to believe it was Easter already, Al reflected as he surveyed his living room. Outside, the sun was setting in scarlet glory. He had spent the day on a tiny strip of beach ten miles up the coast from Cape Canaveral, swimming and sunbathing and generally enjoying the liberty and the solitude. The liberty was exhilarating even now, but the solitude was losing its charm.

He had almost hoped that Elsa Orsós would extend an invitation similar to the one she had proffered at Christmas. No such enticement had been offered, and so he was spending the night alone. It was probably easier to find a hooker now than it was then, but it didn't seem right, somehow.

"Stirrings of a moral code?" he asked, allowing himself the luxury of speaking out loud: it disrupted the oppressive silence. More likely the knowledge that he wasn't going to be satisfied with plain bingo-bango-bongo tonight. He was lonely. He missed having someone to talk to. He hated the feeling of an empty house, even if it was only a tiny one-bedroom apartment.

He couldn't satisfy his soul, but at least he could placate his stomach. He was six pounds away from the prescribed fifteen he had had to pack on. It just didn't seem possible to get any more weight on. He was already eating like a horse, but he just wasn't gaining. At least, however, he wasn't going to lose it, and for that he had to eat.

He moved into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, surveying the hodgepodge of foodstuffs within. A jar of minced garlic. A white deli package of salami. Milk, eggs, butter, a tomato. Apples, olives, grape jelly. The remains of a six-pack of soda, half a bottle of Chianti, a bag of onions. Balsamic vinegar, a thin wedge of ricotta, a dozen carrots, a bowl of peppers, a vial of lemon juice, an avocado.

Al frowned. He didn't remember buying an avocado. Must have been one of those strange impulse purchases he was so prone to now. In the pantry there was a box of macaroni and powdered cheese-flavored petroleum product that he had bought simply because it was American, and that he wasn't going to eat until hell froze over.

The avocado, on the other hand, was staring enticingly at him. He picked it up and cradled it in his hand, a firm, cool weight against the water-smoothed contours of his palm. His thumb pressed the rough, waxy skin. It gave a little under the pressure. It was perfect. In a couple of days it would be overripe and ready for the trash.

Before he knew what he was doing he had the tomato, the peppers and an onion on the counter, and was carefully cutting the lime-colored fruit into two equal halves. He jimmied out the pit and took a metal mixing bowl from the cupboard.

While he worked his mind wandered far away from the present. It was a blisteringly hot day. The heat wave of the decade was sweeping the coast, or at least that was what it felt like. He was home after a month of the drudgery of TDY too far from home, and she had taken the weekend off. That day, fresh from fond lovemaking in their big, inviting four-poster, they had decided to try an experiment: guacamole à la Calavicci. Soon there was mashed avocado all over the kitchen, and they were laughing uncontrollably, eyes wet from chopping onions. Then Beth had added one chili too many, even for his taste, and Al was coughing, his face brilliant red. Then they were kissing. Then…

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Damned onions.

He didn't have any hot peppers, so he chopped one red bell pepper instead and dug out chilli powder from the spice cupboard for bite. There were no tortilla chips, either, but soda crackers would serve the same basic purpose. And Beth's homemade margaritas belonged to a world now eternally out of reach, but at the end of the day Scotch on the rocks would have the same effect. Al took his makeshift meal into the living room and sat down on the floor, his back resting against the sofa. Guacamole, soda crackers, and hard liquor. Quite the Easter supper.

It wasn't bad, considering he had whipped it up extemporaneously from half the wrong ingredients, basing the whole thing on a recipe out of another lifetime.

He ate and washed his dishes. There was nothing better to do than scrub the floor, so he did that too. Then there was nothing. He turned off the light. Maybe another session in the closet? A shiver of dread coursed up his back. He had promised Mortmain, whom he was now seeing twice a week for claustrophobia therapy, that he would try. The shrink wasn't so bad, actually. He was respecting Al's ground rules—namely that he was there to talk about his fear of small spaces, not to dwell on his experiences in Vietnam. Though the "flooding" therapy was taxing and often humiliating, at least he wasn't being asked to recount interrogations and torture sessions and the like.

A knock at the door halted his progress towards the bedroom. In a wild moment of hope, Al practically ran to answer it. As the door opened his spirits rose dramatically. In the corridor stood Elsa Orsós.

"Happy Easter," she said. "I was driving past and I thought, it is a holiday and I have wine. I should say hello to Calvichy."

Al's smile was both enormous and genuine.

"Come in!" he said. "Happy Easter!"

She hesitated. "Are you a mole-man?" she queried. "Every time I come you are sitting in the dark."

Al glanced over his shoulder at the gloomy apartment. He shrugged. "Trying to save on the electrical bill?" he tried.

"You need a better landlord," Elsa said. "My power is part of the rent."

"I didn't realize we were comparing accommodations," Al said, flipping on a light. "Come on in and have a seat."

She looked around, and he fancied that he could see something like surprise on her face as she took in the pristine surfaces and the well-vacuumed carpet. She set the bottle of wine on the counter and opened his cupboard.

"No wine glasses?" she asked.

"Navy-issue dishes," Al said. "Necessities only."

Elsa took out two water tumblers. Al dug in a drawer for a corkscrew.

"I'm glad you stopped by," he said.

"Just for a drink and a short visit," she said firmly.

"But of course!"

MWMWMWMMWMWMWMWMWM

The body next to her went suddenly rigid as a tremor ripped through it. Elsa opened her eyes. In the dim pre-dawn light she could see Calavicci as he went limp again, curling in towards her with a soft sigh. She wasn't sure whether to laugh or scream. She had honestly had no intention of spending the night with him… at least, she had told herself that she had no such intention. She had just wanted to stop by, she told herself, to say hello because she knew that he would be passing the holiday alone. But one drink had turned into two, and thus into three, and then they were sitting on the sofa and kissing eagerly, and somehow they had wound up here, back in his bed where they had pounced upon each other two months ago.

Just like then, she wasn't sorry. It had been wonderful. Yet she was confused. He made her so angry at times, and yet she wanted to be with him. He was intelligent and outspoken and brave. He was not afraid to say what he was thinking, and she respected that.

What troubled her most, she realized, was that he was not Andrew. That was ridiculous, of course. It had been eight years since she had said goodbye to Andrew, and five years since… since…

She reached out and curled her fingers around Calavicci's dog tags. The warm metal tabs felt familiar and their touch reassured her. She cuddled closer to him, wrapping her free hand around his chest. He stirred a little at her touch.

"_Beth_…" he breathed, his sleepy voice scarcely audible. Elsa's lips found his mouth and she kissed him softly. Her eyes drifted closed again as she settled her head on his shoulder and felt his balmy exhalations rippling in her hair.


	18. Chapter Seventeen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The support crew for Apollo 19 was in the simulator. Al sat at one of the consoles, feeding them information from Cap Com. It wasn't easy to focus on the task at hand: he found his eyes constantly wandering over to the Operations station, where Elsa Orsós was coaching a fresh-faced intern in the use of the console. She looked absolutely stunning this morning, with her hair swept up away from her face, and her shapely legs curved around the chair. After breakfasting together on Easter Monday they had continued with life as usual. It had been a week and a half now: ample time for Al to reach a decision. He just hoped that it was the right one.

A sharply repeated query from the simulator brought Al back to the task at hand. As he turned back to the itinerary he fancied that he could feel cool sapphire eyes on the back of his neck. He grinned. She was stubborn and outspoken and difficult and utterly delightful. Absolutely best of all, she was unlike any woman he had ever been with, and especially, unlike Beth.

The exercise was concluded successfully, and while the others were comparing notes Al sidled over to Elsa and bent to kiss the tip of her ear. She whirled, eyes flashing with anger. Seeing who it was, she blushed and smiled.

"Calvichy," she said. "You need to be more careful, or one of these days your head will be rolling towards the door before I see who it is."

Al chose to take that as a compliment. "Miss Orsós," he said ironically. Then he added, in earnest; "You look gorgeous today."

She frowned in challenge. "I'm a professional and—"

"Does that mean I can't ask you out for dinner?" Al queried.

She bristled. "It most certainly—" She stopped. "Dinner?" she echoed.

"Well, yeah." Al shrugged. "I mean, it's about time we went on a real date, don't you think? We've seen an awful lot of each other. Lately," he added, as she cast him a murderous glare. "Seen an awful lot of each other _lately_. "

"I…" she faltered, clearly out of her depth. Al donned his most charming smile.

"I thought tonight," he said. "I could pick you up at seven."

She looked uncertain. Al put two fingers on each of her hips and rocked a little. She followed his motion, and the first stirrings of a smile appeared upon her lips.

"I have your address," he added.

She froze in surprise. "You kept my address from Christmas?" she said.

Al shrugged. "Never throw away a beautiful woman's address.

He realized the second the words were out that he had said the wrong thing. HE withdrew his hands, expecting a slap or an enraged defamation. To his surprise, Elsa smiled coyly.

"So now I'm beautiful?" she said.

"You've always been beautiful," Al told her. "The difference now is I'm starting to think you might not burn me at the stake if I say so."

She smoothed her hair and smiled almost shyly. "Tonight would be good," she said. "But half past seven. I'll wait by the doors."

"Perfect!" Al said. "You like Mexican?"

Her brows furrowed. "I've never been to Mexico."

He laughed. "No, Mexican food!" he said. "Haven't you ever had Mexican food?"

"I… don't think so…" she said.

"Well, that's what we'll do, then," said Al. "Seven-thirty."

"Seven-thirty." She smiled once more, then got up and started to reset the simulator. Al turned towards the astronauts climbing out of the simulator.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

The panic was passed. The screams were finished. There was nothing left but a deep, paralysing terror. Tremors shook Al's limbs as he hugged them close to his shivering torso. The walls were pressing in against him. His breath came in shallow, painful gasps. Hot tears were streaming down his cheeks, uncontrollable and debasing. He wanted to get out of here. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. Unfortunately, he couldn't open the door either, and the more he screamed and begged for release, the longer they would leave him here.

No, some sane part of his mind protested. Not they. Him. Him. Doctor Mortmain. This wasn't Cam Hoi. He wasn't locked in a cache below the floor of Quon's bunker. He was in a broom cupboard in Mortmain's office at Cape Canaveral, and—

The latch was being lifted. Al hastily tried to wipe his face. The door opened and the light blinded him. He gasped for air against his will, and Mortmain took his hand and gripped his shoulder, drawing him out of the cupboard. Al was shaking so violently that he couldn't keep his feet, but the psychiatrist gripped him firmly around his chest and half dragged, half carried him to the sofa. Al was too weak with relief to fight the man as he eased him into a prone position. A moment later, a damp, cool cloth was laid over his forehead. Al's hand flew gratefully to it. The gentle chill eased the throbbing in his frontal lobe.

His breathing was evening out, but his chest ached and his abdomen was sore, and his throat felt like it had been rasped with forty-grain sandpaper. He dragged the cloth over his swollen eyes. Mortmain was dragging over his chair, so that he could start the debriefing. They both knew the drill now, after God knew how many of these sessions. There was an elaborate dance that they would do. Before that could happen, however, Al would have to calm down enough to take some water.

Mortmain was waiting when at last his patient slid the cloth over his nose and onto his throat, and put out an unsteady hand for the glass. The fluid soothed his strained vocal cords and ate away at the headache.

"You did much better today," Mortmain said, pressing the tips of his fingers together and putting on the look that always, despite the man's consideration, made Al feel like some kind of rare and exotic but vaguely loathsome specimen in the hands of an eager scientist. "How long do you think you were in there?"

"One hundred and fifty-three years, seven months, twenty-two days, and six point eight hours," Al supplied, by way of a rough estimate.

"Have you always had this sense of humor?" Mortmain asked.

"Just since I started hanging out with jokers like you."

"It must have been an important survival skill," the shrink observed mildly.

"It definitely makes these sessions more bearable," Al said, though he knew what the man meant. He re-folded the cloth to fin d a cool spot for his forehead.

"I meant in Vietnam." There was a tiny hint of annoyance in Mortmain's voice.

"You should have said," Al quipped. "This one time, Chip and I—Chip was my tailpipe buddy: we'd known each other twenty years—we got ourselves a basket full of baby geckos while we were on shore leave. Snuck into Commander Hartley's quarters and let those suckers loose. Nobody could pin it on us, but of course, everybody knew who did it! Oh, we had some great times!"

"I'm glad," Mortmain said. "But I meant when you were a prisoner."

"Hang on, Doc, we had a deal," Al said, glaring up at him. "I'm here to talk about claustrophobia. I do not have Delayed Stress Symptoms."

"Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, and I didn't say that you did," Mortmain told him. "I just think that like any other unpleasant experience it would help if—"

Al laughed. "_Unpleasant_? Damn, you should run for governor! With a silver tongue like that you'd be able to convince people that north is south!"

"Commander Calavicci, you've been through experiences that most of us can't even imagine, and I would be failing my professional oath if I didn't try to help you cope with them…"

"I'm coping just fine, Doc, thanks," Al said. "Nothing but blue skies and dragonflies from here on out. Besides, your colleagues at Balboa damned near psychoanalyzed me to death."

"My concern is that at the time you were so preoccupied with the pain of coming home to find that your wife had moved on that you weren't coping with your experiences in—"

That was enough! He had been plenty patient, but the nozzle had just stepped over the line. Al sprung to his feet so quickly that he almost keeled over with the dizziness that swept through him. He clutched the back of the sofa defiantly, resisting the urge to sink back down upon it.

"You listen here!" he snapped. "I want to go into space. I've been very cooperative. So far, I've seen almost no results from this treatment. All you do is lock me up in that damned cupboard and leave me there! Now, I can take that, and I can put up with the occasional dig about Vietnam, but if you start dragging Beth into this, God damn it, I'll find myself another therapist!"

"This is an important breakthrough," Mortmain observed. "You're starting to express your feelings about what happened to you: that's very good. What you need to realize now is that anger is a secondary emotion, and you need to explore the feelings that lie hidden behind it. Grief, humiliation, betrayal—"

"She didn't betray me!" Al shouted. "She didn't betray me: it wasn't her fault! We drove her to it: me and the Navy and that legal bastard she ran off with! Now you shut up and leave Beth out of this!"

So saying, he stormed from the room. As he went, Mortmain made one final note on his clipboard.

"Or love," he murmured as the pencil twitched over the paper.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Al wasn't sure how he got home. All he knew was that it was lucky that there wasn't much traffic around in the middle of the day, or he probably would have killed someone. Trembling with choler and the kind of psychological agony that you could expect to experience when the shrinks sunk their meathooks into you, he showered, then went into the other room and rolled into his bed.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

At ten minutes to eight, Elsa finally gave up. She turned her back on the empty street beyond the foyer windows, and sped up the three flights of stairs to her apartment, trying not to allow herself to feel the bitter disappointment. He hadn't come. He didn't really care. He was just like all the others.

All the others except Andrew, she thought fiercely as she stumbled into her bedroom, kicking off her pumps as she went. Andrew had never done a thoughtless thing in his life. Andrew had loved her.

The cruel voice in the back of her head mocked her: _but he left! He left you! And he didn't come back, not even when he had the chance_!

No! It wasn't Andrew's fault. It wasn't. If she had been there she could have helped him fight. If she had been in California instead of out here, starting with NASA, then she could have helped him fight, kept him from giving up.

She picked up the box, a hand-carved wooden box that her father had made for her and given to her on the day she had become a woman. She opened it and upended its contents. They whispered as they slithered out into her cupped hand. She threw the box down on the bed and clutched the cool bundle to her heart.

"Andrew," she whispered. "Andrew, _imádlak_…"

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Al stared at the clock on the dashboard, as if by doing so he could will it to show a half hour earlier. No such luck. It was eight o'clock and he was late.

He had never been late for a date in his life, unless you counted the reunion he had planned for the end of his second tour. But today he had fallen asleep, only to awaken with a start at twenty after seven.

He sighed and got out of the car. He didn't even have flowers, which he had intended to get. He was, however, impeccably dressed and hopefully adequately contrite.

She wasn't in the lobby, big surprise, so he checked the registry on the wall. Apartment 3-F was labeled _Orsós_. It was an older building, without buzzers, and Al mounted the stairs, smoothing his ruffled spirits and preparing his apology. He would have to tell her the truth, of course. At least that way he would be able to point out that he was a nozzle, but he was also an honest nozzle.

To his surprise, the door to 3-F was ajar, the key still in the lock. For a second he debated whether or not he should knock. Then he decided against it. He took the key and closed the door behind him, moving quietly through.

The apartment was larger than his, but so full of furnishings, books and knickknacks that it seemed positively tiny. So she was a bit of a packrat. All of the furniture was heavy: she seemed to favor dark woods and even darker upholstery. She wasn't in the kitchen or the living room. Al approached the bedroom door on cat's feet. Two green satin pumps lay discarded on the floor. He picked them up.

Elsa was sitting on the edge of the bed, her legs curled under her. Her face was wet with tears. As Al watched she opened her hand and kissed something resting in the palm, then picked up a box lying on the coverlet and put the object away. She turned to set it on the bedside table, and gasped as she spotted the intruder.

"I'm sorry," Al said softly, even before she could speak. "I didn't… I had…" The truth, he reminded himself fiercely. "I lost my head in my psyche session today. When I got home I was a wreck, and I fell asleep. I'm sorry I'm late."

She was wiping her eyes fiercely, and smearing her makeup. Al plucked a tissue from the nightstand and passed it to her. He knelt at her feet.

"Your shoes," he said. She stared at him as he slipped them onto her feet. She was wearing a green evening gown and a pearl necklace. "Elsa, I'm sorry," he said, reaching up to stroke her cheek. "I'm so sorry. Please don't cry."

"It isn't that…It isn't you…" she whispered. Then she put out her arms like a child begging to be held. He slipped up onto the bed and hugged her tightly, patting her back.

"That's my girl," he murmured. "Don't cry."

She returned the embrace. "I was scared that you had forgotten me," she said.

"How could I forget you?" Al asked. "Like an idiot I forgot to set an alarm before I passed out. Forgive me?"

She nodded, sitting up and scrubbing at her eyes. She looked at the soiled tissue. "I'll have to fix my makeup," she said ruefully. "Then we can go for Mexican food."

Al shook his head. "Actually," he said; "I was thinking about that. How do you feel about Italian instead?"

Elsa smiled and straightened his tie for him. "I like Italian," she said softly.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

They ate at an intimate little restaurant just off of Park Avenue, talking happily about everything and nothing. Afterwards they ventured out under the trees, Al's arm curved around Elsa's waist while she rested her head on his shoulder.

"You know, Calvichy," she said presently; "I think I was wrong about you. You are a good man."

He could have corrected her, but she had given him far too good an opening for the direction he wanted to take this conversation. Any doubts he'd had had been dispersed by Mortmain's allegations about Beth. Time to shut up the gossips once and for all.

"You'd better learn how to pronounce my last name," he said. "It's Calavicci."

"Calvichy," she tried.

"No, Calavicci."

"Calyvichy." She smiled impishly as she said it.

"Come on," Al coaxed; "concentrate. Cal-a-vee-chee."

She furrowed her brow. "Cal-va-chee-chee?"

He stopped and frowned. "You're stringing me along!" he accused.

"Why should I learn how to pronounce your stupid last name?" she demanded, indignant at being caught so blatantly in the act.

If this wasn't a perfect moment, there was never going to be one. Al slipped away from her and dropped to one knee, drawing a little box out of his pocket as he did so.

"Because it could be _your_ stupid last name," he said, holding out the ring.

She just stared at him.


	19. Chapter Eighteen

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Elsa lay on her back in the sand, staring up at the cloudless sky. She raised her hand above her head and turned it so that the diamond glittered like a star. It was a beautiful ring. To think she had tried to turn it down.

She had tried several times, in fact. She relived the conversation as she watched the sparkles in the sunlight.

"I don't want to marry you!" she had protested.

"Why? Something wrong with me?" Calavicci had asked, getting to his feet. He'd been smiling, but she was aware of his disappointment.

"I don't need a husband!" she said. "Husbands are nothing but trouble!"

"Nothing wrong with a little trouble," he had said suavely, guiding her over to a bench and brushing it off before she sat.

"Hah! Men want to control you! The only reason a man wants a wife is to have somebody handy to sleep with, and somebody to cook and clean for them!"

He laughed. "Only a fool would try to control _you_. I don't need somebody handy to sleep with. I'm Italian and I can cook for myself. And you show me a room that you can clean better than I can, and I'll show you one sailor who's ready for that final voyage!" He had wrapped his arm around her shoulder and kissed her on the crest of her cheekbone. "Come on, marry me!"

She thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. "No," she said. "I… I don't know if I love you."

"So marry me and you'll find out!" he said blithely. His cavalier attitude was disarming. She had laughed and shaken her head.

"That isn't how it works," she said.

"I don't know," he had said pensively. "Seems to me that the recent fashion of marrying for love has a worse track record than the old trial-and-error approach."

"What if it's a mistake?" she had said, her logic overriding her heart.

"So you get over it, and next time you're wiser! Come on. We're good company. Why not get hitched and make it official?"

Then he had slipped the ring onto her finger, and she had not resisted.

She smiled. Once again she was going to be married, and this time the government would not stop her.

Apollo 19 was to go up in three days. She knew that Calavicci—that _Al_ was disappointed that he was not going to go up with it, but she was glad. No one had died in space yet, but with her luck he would be the first. She propped herself up on her elbows and looked down towards the water. Somehow he had wrangled a day off for both of them—the first that either had had in almost two weeks—and he had insisted on spending it at the beach. It was a tiny beach, scarcely large enough for the two of them, the picnic basket, and the sandcastle that he had insisted on building. Below her she could see Al swimming in the surf, his arms taking long, powerful strokes. He stood up, water streaming from his bare shoulders, and waved at her. She waved back, smiling enormously.

He waded towards the shore, the waves breaking against his back, then his legs, until finally they were nothing but foam around his ankles. He came up the sand, shaking his head so that the water flew in every direction. Elsa smiled enormously.

"Hey, gorgeous," Al said, grabbing his towel and ruffling his hair so that the tiny black curls stood out in every direction. He dried himself quickly, and knelt down on the edge of her blanket. He kissed her and she twined her arms around his neck. Then he slipped out of her grasp, scrubbed his face with the towel, and started to daub sunblock on his nose.

"You know, you're going to wind up with lines in that nice, even tan," he said, shivering a little as he shook the bottle of lotion and proceeded to smear it over his arms.

"That's what that stuff is for," she said. "To even it out again."

He laughed. "Sure. I thought redheads burned easily?"

Elsa sat up. "Not this redhead." She kissed him again. He reciprocated briefly, then spun around, sitting down with a soft thump. He handed her the bottle.

"Here, do my back," he said. "Careful not to miss anything. I may not be a redhead, but I burn like a lobster."

She nibbled his ear. "I like lobster," she said. "Besides, a tan might hide some of these marks."

She greased her hands and slid them over the rippling, scarred skin of his back. She felt him flinch under the touch.

"What, do they bother you?" he asked, and she could tell from the way that he said it that he didn't mean it as lightly as he wanted her to think he did.

"No," she said, bending down to kiss one of the glossy ridges. "They're interesting. There is one down here that is shaped like Hungary."

He turned around, with a wry smile on his lips. "No kidding?" he said.

"No," she told him, tracing it with her finger. "See? Exactly the shape of Hungary."

He chuckled and gathered her forward into his arms. "You're really something," he said.

"Better than being nothing," she mumbled as his lips found hers.

"Is that a dig?" he said thickly, between kisses.

"You're the one who makes the sand castles."

"Mmh. I'm compensating," he sighed.

"Compensating?"

He shrugged and kissed her harder. "Deprived childhood. Not many beaches in New York City."

"I love New York," Elsa said.

"We could go there for the honeymoon, if you like," Al said. "I was thinking New Orleans, but—"

"Are we going to have a honeymoon?"

"Sure, of course." He slid down so that his head was resting on her lap. "What's a wedding without a honeymoon?"

He reached up over her and into the bag of clothing and sundries, and drew out a cigar and a book of matches. Elsa toyed with his hair as he lit up.

"Papa—my father," she said, inhaling the sweet smoke. "He loves expensive cigars. But the prices are so high on the black market that he can only get one or two a year."

"Mmh. We'll have to send him a box with the wedding announcement," Al said. He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. "Better yet, two boxes: one to smoke and one to sell!"

Elsa realized abruptly that she would have to write her parents. "Oh!" she said sharply. "What will Mama say?"

"About what?" Al murmured drowsily.

"Me! Getting married!"

He looked at her in disbelief. "Elsa, you've been independent for fourteen years!" he said. "You're a grown woman. You don't need your mother's permission to get married."

"What if she doesn't approve?" Elsa fretted.

"What's not to approve of? I'm a respectable military man, an astronaut, I have plenty of money, I'm even Catholic."

"You're Italian."

He smirked. "That's your misfortune," he teased. She laughed softly and bent over to kiss him.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

The sun was setting when they left the beach and drove to Al's apartment. Elsa was not comfortable with having him spend the night at her place: her landlady would not understand the relationship. Nevertheless, though she knew that abstinence until marriage was what her parents would have expected, she could not stay away from her betrothed. Perhaps she did not love him the way she had loved Andrew, but she delighted in his company, in their wild evenings of passion, in the soft sighs he made when he slept. He was funny, considerate and charming. They weren't even arguing anymore.

He rounded the car to open the passenger door for her, and they mounted the stairs together. Elsa had the key, and she opened the door. He slipped past her and drew her into the apartment, clutching her in an encompassing embrace as he closed the door and shot the deadbolt. He smelled of sand and sunshine and sea-salt, and she felt a burst of desire that drove her to find his lips for what had to be the hundredth time that day. He stroked her hair as they kissed.

"Bathtime?" he murmured, his lips finding her neck.

"Mmh…"

He began to maneuver them towards the bathroom, fumbling with the knot of the bright fabric she wore wrapped around her waist. Elsa tripped a little as her feet slipped out of the purple plastic sandals, but Al caught her around the waist and held her tighter. His fingers found the bow fastening the top piece of her swimsuit. As it fell away and the embrace tightened, the telephone shattered the silence.

Al stiffened a little, but Elsa clung tightly, willing the embrace to continue as he moved to the living room. She lifted his shirt over his head and off of his arms as he reached for the receiver, and her hands began to work over his bare chest and back.

"Cala—mmph—Calavicci," he said, tripping over his name as he tried to move his mouth away from hers. She kissed the tiny scar to the right of his mouth, the one that looked like a second dimple set too high. "Oh, hey, Jim. How's things?"

Suddenly he was pushing her off of him. "What the _hell_?" he roared. "You're kidding… God, you're not kidding!"

"What's wrong?" Elsa whispered, trying to massage his shoulders.

"Jesus Christ, we're three days from launch! Was anybody hurt?"

Elsa's heart sprung to her throat and this time when Al swatted her away she withdrew. Something had gone wrong. Suddenly she felt very exposed standing there in her bikini bottoms. She retrieved her sarong from the floor and wrapped it under her arms, her eyes fixed on Al. His face had gone a very horrible shade of gray, and he was scrubbing at his forehead with his free hand.

"God, yes—yes, I'll be there as soon as I can," he said. "Damn it. _Damn it_." He glanced at Elsa. "There anybody else you're trying to get ahold of?" he asked. "Yeah, okay. Yeah. As soon as I can."

He cradled the receiver and chafed both hands against his face. Elsa stepped forward, placing a tentative hand on his bare arm. "What is it?" she asked softly.

"God… the S-II arrived last night, right?" he said. He wasn't really looking for confirmation, but she nodded anyway. "This morning they were pulling out the spool and putting the module in when the hydraulic lift gave out. Thing fell forty feet, made a crater in the asphalt. Sounds like Nineteen isn't going up on Tuesday."

"No!"

"Yeah. Yeah… look, I've got to get up there… could you do me a favor and pull out a fresh uniform? I've got to have a quick shower… I'm really sorry about this, but apparently they've been trying to get ahold of me for six hours…JFK is a media circus, all hands on deck, united front…" Al shook his head as if he was aware that he wasn't making any sense. "I've got to get up there," he repeated lamely.

"Yes, yes, you do. Do they need me?"

"Taggert didn't say anything about that… God, what am I supposed to do if they start asking me questions?" He looked up at her in terror.

"Who?"

"The press… what the hell am I supposed to say? I don't know anything!"

She cupped her hand around his cheek. "Well, don't tell them that," she said in a matter-of-fact voice. "Tell them it's classified and they should talk to Yardley. Yardley or one of the other administrators. That's what they told us all to say when Apollo 13 was in trouble."

"I forgot you've been around that long… could you come with me?" His eyes were pleading, like a child afraid to face the first day of school alone.

"No, not if…" Elsa frowned. "Why do they want you? It isn't your mission."

"I don't know… Taggert said they want all the Apollo astronauts there… something about a united front…"

He wasn't thinking straight. He was panicking. Elsa hugged him, stroking his hair. He didn't fight her, and she could feel his body trembling against hers. "Was anyone hurt?" she whispered.

"No… no… I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I wish someone would tell me what to do."

She didn't understand this sudden uncertainty. In her experience he was anything but indecisive, but now, suddenly, he didn't know what to do. It was strange. Nevertheless, if he needed orders she was as capable of giving them as any captain.

"Go and take a shower," she said firmly. "I'll find you a uniform and make you a sandwich. Then you go up there and find Taggert, and he'll tell you what they need you to do."

Al nodded numbly, and she watched as he made his way to the bathroom, rubbing each upper arm with the opposite hand.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Two of the guys from Public Relations briefed the handful of spacemen as they donned flight suits and optimistic smiles.

"Here's how it will work," said the one who looked not a little like a weasel. "Roosa, Glenwood and Winters, you'll be seated at a table with Yardley and Matheson. Colonel Simmons, you too. You'll be handling the questions. We're typing prompt sheets for each of you as we speak. The three important points to emphasize are: no one was hurt, it's a _minor_ setback, and you three from the main crew especially are very optimistic about the mission even though it'll obviously be a little delayed."

"How little delayed?" Winters asked.

"We're not sure," the second PR man said. "We've go the guys in California working on an ETA for the S-II for Apollo 20, but—"

Despite his resolution to go unnoticed, Al couldn't keep his mouth shut through that one. "Won't that mean delays to Apollo 20, too?" he asked.

"Very probably," said weasel-face. "Now, we'll have chairs for the rest of you behind the table. You're there as a presence only: no one is going to ask you any questions."

Al almost moaned in relief. It was stupid and irrational and qualified for just about every derogatory adjective in the book, but the thought of facing reporters had struck genuine terror into his heart. It wasn't a fear of public speaking: he had always been great at that. It was the idea of being asked questions to which he had no answers. The idea of being interrogated.

The weasel's partner was talking again. "In the event that some joker tries to startle something out of one of you just remember: no one was hurt because everyone was following the protocols, it's a _minor_ setback, and we're all optimistic. Very optimistic."

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Al wasn't feeling very optimistic as he wearily climbed the stairs to his apartment at one o'clock the next morning. After playing a human backdrop at the circus of a press conference, he had driven out to the assembly complex with Taggert to examine the wreckage of the fallen rockets and try to wheedle some solid information out of the engineers overseeing its removal. The spool had been replaced to support the other components, and the vessel looked strangely unwieldy with the dummy segment in its middle. After that Al had stopped by Admin to pick up his revised orders for the week. With the launch now pushed back to an indefinite date, his spot in the simulator had been pre-empted for the main crew, but the longer that was delayed the better. It gave him more time to conquer his claustrophobia.

He had forgotten to bring his key, but the door was unlocked. In the kitchen, Elsa sat sleeping with her head on the table. She had changed into a yellow checked cotton sundress that made her look like a bouquet of fiery flowers. Al tiptoed up to her and kissed the graceful arc of her neck. With a soft sigh of pleasure, she turned and lifted her head.

"Mmh, you're home," she said.

"Yeah, and I'm dead beat," Al said heavily, sinking into a chair. "What a zoo."

"Is there a lot of damage?"

He shrugged. "The shell looks fine, but God only knows what kind of a mess the wiring's in. It sounds like they plan to scrap the whole thing and use Apollo 20's."

"And cancel the last mission?" Elsa exclaimed.

"I don't know. They said delay. But one of the snoops seemed to think there's a rumor going around that Congress thinks this is an excuse to scrap the program entirely."

Elsa got to her feet, his own fierce tigress. "They can't do that!" she said firmly. "Just let them try it!"

She moved over to the stove and uncovered a simmering pot. "I made potato soup," she said. "And there are rolls left over from the picnic."

Al shook his head and rubbed his eyes. "I'm not hungry," he said. "I need some sleep."

"You also need food!" Elsa said sternly. "You're too skinny to go into space as it is. Now you eat this, or I'll tie you up and force-feed you."

She set a bowl of steaming, creamy soup in front of him, and he caught her around the hip, nuzzling her flat stomach. "I might not mind being tied up by _you_," he murmured seductively.

Elsa playfully swatted the back of his head. "Are all Italians as dirty-minded as you?" she asked.

"Only the incredibly handsome ones," he said.

"Ah!" Elsa exclaimed, snapping her fingers. "Well, that explains it!" She kissed the crown of his head and moved to the refrigerator to pour him his nightly glass of whole milk. "Eat all of your soup and maybe I'll tuck you in," she said.

Al chuckled. "You're quite a woman, Miss Orsós," he said, bending over his meal.


	20. Chapter Nineteen

Note: For this and subsequent chapters, asll names, characters, and locales are swiped from Donald Belisario, are the product of the author's fevered imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual historical figures, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

"_What do you mean they're scrapping Apollo_?" Al cried.

Jim Taggert shrugged his shoulders sadly. "Yeah, I know," he said. "I was really sure Twenty'd be my shot, too."

"They can't do that!" Al protested. "They can't cancel those missions! It's just a setback—"

"They're the Congressional funding committee. They can co whatever they want," Taggert said flatly.

It was the middle of June, three weeks after Apollo 19 should have gone up, and the two astronauts were seated in the almost-empty cafeteria, nursing their coffees and catching a few minutes' leisure time. Leisure had been scarce lately, with everyone putting on a show of efficiency for a suddenly curious public. Now, it seemed, the tension was all for nothing.

"Are you going to try for a transfer to Skylab?" Taggert asked. "Me, I had my heart set on the moon. It's back to the Air Force for this jet jock."

"Don't be ridiculous!" Al said. "They aren't cancelling the program.

"Who's going to stop them?" Taggert asked. "You?"

Al got to his feet. "If nobody else will," he said fiercely.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

John Yardley nodded patiently as Calavicci concluded his tirade and sat back with a cathartic exhalation and a breathless, "_Sir_."

Yardley allowed silence to settle over the office. He had to admire the man's spunk. He'd been to hell and back, lost his health, lost his wife, discovered he'd acquired a crippling neurosis, and still he had the gumption to get worked up over something like this. It was men like Albert Calavicci that made America great, and Yardley really had hoped, once upon a time, to send him to the moon. Even now he had to admit that it would have looked very good for everybody concerned.

He folded his hands on the desk. "Calavicci, I appreciate your dedication to the Apollo program," he said. "You've shown determination in the face of unprecedented obstacles, and there isn't a man involved in this program who can deny that you've got the makings of one hell of an astronaut. Don't ruin it by making a fuss over this. We'll transfer you straight to Skylab—"

"You're saying it's true?" Calavicci exclaimed. "They're pulling the plug on Apollo?"

Yardley decided to lay it out like it was. "Calavicci, we're more than three years behind. Despite our best efforts, Apollo 18 barely even made the nightly news. If anyone's interested in space, they're interested in Skylab. Five years ago we managed to convince Congress of the importance of completing the program, but we wouldn't have managed that, even, if they hadn't had a bad year. Now we've been set back another six months and seventy million dollars—which is assuming Nineteen's S-II can be refurbished for Twenty. Nothing is final yet, but I'm telling you that there isn't a hope in hell that they'll fund us. We'll be lucky if they don't cut back on Skylab."

The wiry astronaut straightened up in his chair. "Nothing's final?" he said.

Yardley pinched the bridge of his nose. He was starting to identify the pain there as the Calavicci Headache: it had started when Holloway had called him up a year and a half ago to tell him there was a repatriated MIA interested in the space program, and the United States Navy was _very interested_ in seeing him realize this dream. By way of a personal favor, Jack, you understand…

"Calavicci," he said; "they don't even want to hear it. They're going to crucify me when I ask for it."

"So you are going to try to get the money?" Calavicci said keenly, leaning forward. To make matters worse, he never missed a trick. He was quite possibly the smartest man who had ever come near NASA, if you didn't count Doctor von Braun. Yardley was by no means a genius, but he was smart enough to smell them.

"Yes, I'm flying to Washington on Monday to testify, but they aren't going to give it. Leave it alone, Calavicci. You'll be terrific for Skylab, and—"

"This isn't about me, this is about Apollo!" Calavicci said. "You can't just give up like this—damn it, you've only got two missions left! Do them and you keep your promise! You live the dream! Isn't that worth seventy million?"

Yardley chuckled. The man had a flair for rhetoric. Too bad he didn't know the first thing about politics. "Tell Congress that," he said, waving dismissively.

"I'm not the one who's flying to Washington," Calavicci said; "but if you go out there with that attitude of course you're not going to get anywhere!"

It struck with the force of an epiphany. Yardley hated the idea of giving up Apollo almost as much as Calavicci did… and after all, Congress had made it plain where they wanted this little dago pilot. Maybe…

Yardley smiled. "Maybe you could be…" he mused.

Calavicci's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Elsa listened to the dull roar of the shower as she set the table for supper. Something strange was going on. Al had come over, as he had promised, but he hadn't seemed interested in their usual initial advances. On the contrary, he hadn't even kissed her before telling her that he needed to bathe and vanishing behind a locked door.

The wedding was less than three months away, and Elsa was certain she was going to go mad. There was so much to consider, and Al didn't seem inclined to think about it at all. Thank God it would at least be a small affair: neither of them had any family, at least not in the United States, and they had few friends, either. Yet though the church was booked there was the dress, and the scant guest list, the food…

And after the wedding, where would they live? When she had raised this question the first time Al had just shrugged and said that the two apartment system seemed to be working just fine. That was ridiculous. She had pressed and pressed until he had finally exclaimed that he'd give her his chequebook and she could go and buy a house! Elsa had bristled at this insinuation that she was a spoiled child to be placated with money and toys. Then Al had soothed her ruffled feathers and promised that they would go together to look at houses, and settle upon something in a diplomatic fashion, as befitted two equal partners in a relationship. In fact, they had a day set aside next week to do just that.

Ever since the mishap with the S-II, Al had been much more preoccupied than usual. He was constantly thinking about NASA, incessantly mulling over problems. His claustrophobia treatments weren't going any better, and he was frequently tired and waspish—not at all the caring, affectionate man he had been through the early days of their engagement. Now he was brooding in her shower while the dinner she had prepared for them grew cold.

Or not, she realized abruptly. The sound of rushing water had stopped, and bare arms were wrapping themselves around her waist. His chin rested on her shoulder and he pulled her buttocks against his bony hip.

"Hey, beautiful," he murmured. "What do you say we try out the springs on your mattress?"

"Supper first," she said firmly. "Go and put some clothes on."

He rocked both of them to and fro. "Aw, c'mon," he wheedled. "I'm not hungry."

"Hah! You always say that, and when I sit you down, behold! you eat!"

Al rubbed at his forehead. "Elsa, I'm not in the mood," he muttered.

She steered him to a chair. "You sit down and eat your supper," she said firmly, uncovering the dishes and filling his plate with generous helpings of everything. He picked up his fork, but then dropped his hand back to the table with a sigh. She massaged his shoulders. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Congress wants to pull the plug," Al muttered.

Elsa shook her head. "They can't do that," she said.

"That's what I told Yardley."

"And?"

"And he said I should tell Congress that." Al looked up at her warily. "He's flying up to Washington on Monday, and he wants me to come with him."

"On Monday?" Elsa echoed. "Why?"

He shrugged. "Search me. Seems to think the argument will carry more weight if he has a pet astronaut in tow."

"Well… are you going?" Elsa asked.

"Of course I'm going!" he snapped. "I can't just knuckle under and let them shut Apollo down!"

She regarded him briefly. It meant yet another delay in their preparations, and yet she had to respect that he was fighting. He was right: he couldn't knuckle under. All surrender ever brought was pain. "Good!" she said fiercely. "Good, I'm glad!"

He frowned. "What about the house?"

"What _about_ the house?" She waved her hand dismissively. "You have to go! Or else we'll both be out of a job. That's bad luck on a marriage: bride and groom unemployed."

He laughed a little and kissed her hand. "Can I spend the night this time?" he asked.

She allowed herself an effervescent giggle as she put the fork back in his hand. "If you eat all your asparagus," she said.

Al smiled wearily and started on his meal.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

He was so tired… so tired… The darkness swam and fluctuated before his eyes. His jaw quivered and trembled. His back ached. He couldn't remember how long he had been sitting like this. They had fed him ten times… or eleven? God, he was tired…

Al tried to move his aching legs, but that only made the vice-like stocks dig their rusty edges deeper into his ankles. If only he had a bit of wire he could pick the cuffs that held his hands behind his back… but he had inadvertently cinched them tighter when he had fallen back against the rough wooden plank that served as a bed, and his fingers were numb and swollen. Next time they removed the cuffs for a meal they would be useless. He would have to lower his face to the dish and root in the foul-tasting rice like a dog. He didn't care. He was starving. And God, God, he was so tired. Just a little sleep… just a little sleep…

He had lost track of the time… not just how long he had been bound like this, unable to sleep, unable to rest, living in his own mess because even when they removed the cuffs the stocks remained. He had lost track of how long it had been since he'd spoken to another American. He had lost track of the time since the crash. Was it summer, or autumn? God, it felt like a year. He was going to go crazy. He was crazy already. You didn't sleep, you went whacko awful fast.

Breathing was difficult. The last time the guards had come with food, one of them had thumped him in the ribs with a billy club, beating him because he hadn't asked for permission before speaking. The prisoners were supposed to say "_bao cao_" before addressing a guard. That was Viet talk for "report". Report. Retort. Consort. Cavort. God, every muscle in his body hurt, and he suspected he was getting bedsores on his buttocks. Ironic, 'cause this wasn't a bed. Not any more. It was a torture rack.

There was a jangle of keys, and Al shrunk in on himself. He didn't know if he could take another session in the ropes. He'd break. He knew he'd break. They must have broken him four or five times since they'd brought him here five… six… seven months ago. How long had it been? When would this end?

The door opened and light poured in to the narrow cell. There was a snap as the locking bar was removed from the stocks. Al felt the metal being lifted, and then rough hands were hauling him to his feet. His legs were weak from prolonged inactivity, and they collapsed under him, but rough hands hauled him up. Pain arched through his collarbone, the one that he'd broken in the fall to earth, and that hadn't healed right. He bit back a moan of agony.

An iron bar tipped with a hook scraped along his leg, pulling off the soiled shorts. Guards at the Hilton were finicky that way. Out in the jungle camps they weren't quite so scared to get their hands dirty. Not if it meant they could torture you.

No, but he didn't know that yet, Al reminded himself. This was Hoa Lo, it was 1967. He hadn't been dragged back by Quon yet. He didn't know anything about hell. He just thought he knew. Stupid, innocent kid. Oh, he thought he knew.

What was all that about? God, he was whacko, all right. Off his rocker. Dinky dau.

They dragged him down the corridor and into a room. There were hooks of every size and description. Hooks and ropes and rags to prevent scars. At the Hilton they cared about avoiding signs of torture. In that way, too, Quon was less particular. After all, his prisoners were MIA. They didn't exist. The United Nations would never know if one more MIA was tortured to death.

The agony as they strung him from the ceiling by his arms wrenched a tormented cry from his lips. Hard to control your body when you hadn't slept for a week or more. How much more? Who knew…

But you had to control your mouth. You had to. And the only way to do that was to feed it the words. Always the same words. "Calavicci," he babbled, the syllables spilling out like the nonsense they were. "Albert. Lieutenant. B-933-852. 15-06-34. Calavicci, Albert. Lieutenant. B-9—"

They dragged on his legs and he screamed.

Then suddenly Hoa Lo was gone. He was in the jungle. Cham Hoi. His feet were torn and bleeding from the forced march. His arms were still bound behind his back. Beyond the cage the V.C. were celebrating. A pig was roasting over the embers, filling the jungle with the smell of meat. Al's dry mouth ached and his empty stomach sobbed in protest. By the light of the fire he could see Titi at Major Quon's right hand, her cold eyes glittering and her face proud and haughty. She was blooded today. She had killed her first American. And what an American! Al didn't know why, but he understood that this particular young commander was especially hated by the Major. He had wanted him dead now for months, all winter. And Titi had accomplished that. She had always been Quon's favorite soldier. Now she would be given anything and everything she wanted.

She left the fire and approached the cage, trim hips swaying like the shoulders of a panther. She halted before the cage, and he could see the gleam of hell in her eyes. Then she grabbed his shoulders and she shook him.

"Al!" she shouted. "Al, wake up! Al!"

She shook him so hard that his shoulder popped out of its ill-healed socket. He screamed. He couldn't help it: it hurt, oh, God, it hurt!

"Al!" Titi roared, but her voice sounded strange. Still deep and rich, but the accent was wrong. And her black eyes glittered like sapphires, and her black hair was on fire. "Al!"

It wasn't Titi. It was Elsa. Oh, God, it was Elsa!

Al fell forward with a dry sob of abject relief, and suddenly the long-nailed hands were stroking his back.

"Only a dream," Elsa murmured gently. "Al, it was only a dream."

He clutched her tightly. It _was_ only a dream. It had to be. But there was only one way to prove it. He sat up and took her in his trembling arms. His lips found hers and he kissed her. "As long as we're both awake…" he gasped, though he knew it was a need and not an incidental at all.

Elsa was not so informed. She laughed and their embrace grew more intimate. As passion rose to banish terror Al was overtaken by an ocean of blessed forgetfulness.


	21. Chapter Twenty

Note: The picture mentioned is NOT Maggie Dawson's Pulitzer-prize-winning photograph. That wasn't taken in the Original History! For a description of THIS photo, please see Chapter 11 of my other story, "The Sound of Silence".

CHAPTER TWENTY

NASA had arranged for a car to pick up Yardley on the private airstrip outside of DC. Al could not help hesitating for a fraction of a second before climbing into the back seat. Although the Associate Administrator's briefings had kept his mind occupied during the flight, the relief of exiting the plane had made him aware of his discomfort. Nevertheless, he set his jaw and sat down, loosening the top button of his uniform as he did so.

As the city rose around them, it occurred to him that the two of them would probably be sharing a hotel room. The prospect filled him with a vague horror. He had been getting better at making it through the night without disturbances—or so he had thought until the night at Elsa's. Perhaps it was just the bed in his apartment that he was growing accustomed to. The last thing he wanted was to wake Yardley up with his screams. Bad enough to wake Elsa.

To his infinite relief, Yardley seemed bent on showing Congress just how spendthrift NASA could be. As it turned out, he was only TDY at the Kennedy Space Center. In fact, he worked at HQ and made his permanent home in Washington. Therefore it was most economical to have Al as his houseguest. He had a bedroom and a half bath on the main floor of a stately West End home, all to himself and a good distance away from the reunited couple. Phyllis, the administrator's wife, was a very considerate and capable hostess, and saw to it that Al was much more comfortable than he would have been in the most costly hotel.

For the first two days, Yardley was putting in time at NASA Headquarters, which left Al more or less to his own devices. On Monday he pored over the charts and budgets and projections that the Congressional committee had been given, trying to sketch out some kind of speech. As he understood it he was there to proclaim his undying loyalty to the Apollo program, which he would guard with his life, his dignity, and his sacred honor—at least, that was how he interpreted it. Yardley was there to field the tough questions: Al was just for show value.

That was fine. He could handle that.

On Tuesday he went to Capitol Hill, because that was what good little sailors did when they visited Washington. He visited the Lincoln Memorial, wandered around the grounds, and then made his way through the Smithsonian, just for something to do. By the time he found his way back to Casa Yardley, he was almost ready to collapse into bed.

On Wednesday he donned his dress whites, put on his most somber military expression, and stepped out in front of the Congressional funding committee.

There were seven members, ranging in age from forty-three to sixty. Two women, five men, every single one of them cut from the same cloth: a very pragmatic, sober, boring and unimaginative cloth. Yardley answered their questions succinctly and straightforwardly, giving the most pertinent information first and presenting everything in a simple and logical manner. This was probably the best way to deliver information to this crowd, but the problem was that logic dictated that Apollo be concluded. Really, it had been the most logical course of action the last time the question had been raised, too. What had saved them then was an appeal to patriotism and the Democratic desire for popularity. It seemed to Al that if they didn't get these prunes excited about the lunar missions they might as well have stayed in Florida throwing pebbles into the sea.

He said as much to Yardley during a brief recess in the proceedings.

"Trust me, Calavicci," he said, smiling a little. "You just sit back and let me take care of it."

"Take care of it?" Al protested. "Every word you say makes it look more and more sensible to shut Apollo down!"

"Exactly," Yardley said. "That's exactly how you have to play it. You see, Calavicci, Congress is full of fools, but they're overeducated, proud, self-important fools. If I came in there fighting tooth and nail, trying to tell them that they're wrong, and they'd balk like mules. So I go in there saying almost exactly what they're thinking, then as I go I start working them slowly around to my point of view. That way, by the time I pull out the aces they're eating out of my hand."

"That's quite the gamble," Al pointed out. "What if you push them over the edge and can't get them back again?"

Yardley laughed. "Life's a gamble, Calavicci!" he said. "You've just got to make sure you hedge your bets a little!"

Al decided he liked this man. He really liked him.

"How are you hedging yours?" he asked.

Yardley reached out to brush something off of one of the Naval officer's epaulettes. "I brought you," he said, smirking a little.

Al laughed hollowly. Some ace in the hole _he_ was. "Sir, I…"

"Trust me, Calavicci. They're going to be eating out of our hands!"

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

After that, Al watched Yardley carefully. He realized that what he said was true: he was gradually adding a more and more positive slant to what he was saying. Encouraging factoids like the program's excellent success rate somehow snuck their way in between accounts of the projected delays. What Al couldn't see was the words having any effect. As far as he could tell, the dour-faced politicians weren't yielded at all. After making a point about the necessity of replacing the S-II to ensure that there would be no glitches in the flight, Yardley paused for effect, and scrawled a note on the corner of one of his papers. As he launched into another litany of cost figures he slid the page across the table towards Al. In the engineer's careless but still uncommonly legible hand were the words _We've got Idaho_.

Startled, Al looked up at the table. The Congressman from Boise was a jowl-faced fifty-something with a wispy gray goatee. He was tapping his pen slowly against the blotter in front of him. He looked, if anything, dead of boredom.

Al picked up a pen and scribbled back, _Are you sure?_

Yardley glanced at the memo, and nodded, grinning out of the corner of his mouth without even pausing in his rhetoric.

Finally, the morning session ended, and still Al hadn't done anything but sit there like a hood ornament. The committee wasn't going to reconvene until three—Al had heard about Congress and their obscenely long lunch hours, but he had never quite believed it until now—and so that left the better part of two and a half hours for lunch. Yardley invited Al to join him and a couple of his colleagues, but the last thing Al wanted to do was crash a party full of eggheads. He took off across the lawn on his own.

"Hey!"

He froze as a voice rang out.

"Hey! Al Calavicci!"

Al turned to see a tall man in a very expensive suit jogging up, carrying an alligator briefcase. "Al Calavicci! I knew it! Hey, _Navy_…"

Al closed his eyes, trying to remember. Grease paint and cheap cotton costumes. The voice that was eulogizing over his uniform reached his brain speaking very different words: _The weight of this sad time we must obey: speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath suffered most. We that are young shall never see so much, nor live so long_. "Edgar—I mean, Paul! Paul Thoroughgood!"

"In the flesh! How've you been? Where've you been?"

Al stared at his fellow thespian, a one-time ragged beatnik now turned corporate savant. "I could ask you the same thing! What happened? Somebody steal your beret?"

Paul grinned. "Naw. Mother Dearest finally got her wish. I'm a lawyer."

Al grimaced. "I hate lawyers!"

"And I hate sailors! God, it's good to see you!" He pulled Al into a bear hug. "My evil twin!"

Al favored his old friend with a toothy grin. "Be careful," he warned, waggling his finger as he recalled the great times they'd had playing opposite one another in King Lear. "You can only kill an Italian once! Besides," he added, scowling; "Edgar and Edmund weren't twins. You're slipping, Toothpick."

"Damn, this is fabulous! What are you doing in Washington?"

"I'm with NASA—trying to drum up some extra dough to cover a little mishap."

"Yeah, I heard about that… listen! D'you have time for lunch?" Paul asked. "I'm meeting an old frat buddy; you're welcome to join us."

Al shook his head. "Thanks, but I don't crash parties."

"Are you kidding? You have any idea how boring it is to have lunch with a lawyer?" Paul asked.

Al shrugged. "I have a feeling that I'm about to find out," he said.

Paul laughed. "You're all right, kid!"

The restaurant was within walking distance, and soon a shapely young waitress was showing them to a table in a quiet back room. Already seated behind an olive-garnished martini was an athletic man with longish, dusty-blonde hair, also clad in costly threads. He looked up as the one-time actors approached.

"Paul!" he said. Then he spotted Al. "And…"

Paul grinned. "An old friend: happened to bump into him and thought you wouldn't mind a little variety with the lunch conversation."

"No, of course not," the other man said, getting to his feet and offering Al his hand. "Any friend of Paul's is a friend of mine."

"Same here," Al said. "Except maybe that guy who ran the poetry bar."

Paul laughed. "Al knows me from my rebel days. We were both raging against the Machine of the 'fifties. Hadn't seen him in years!"

The other man was frowning, examining Al's face pensively. "I'm sorry, but have we met?" he asked. "I have the strangest feeling I've seen you somewhere before."

Al thought uncomfortably of a certain photograph that had circled the country in '73. He hadn't wanted them to use it. He had refused to let them print his name. But it was out there, and every once in a while he had moments like this. Especially in the company of well-educated, conservative types. To cover his discomfiture, he laughed. "I've got one of those faces," he said.

The lawyer shook his head. "I could _swear_…" He shrugged his shoulders. "You'll have to excuse me," he said. "I'm having a Twilight Zone moment."

"Where are my manners?" Paul exclaimed. "I haven't introduced you. Al, this is Dirk. Dirk, Al. There! Now, let's have lunch!"

They sat and ordered, and slowly got around to the inevitable questions. Paul, it seemed, was living in Washington now. He had a girlfriend who was employed in the Oval Office, of all places, and he was enjoying the freedom of a commuter relationship. Al tried to stay sketchy with details about his own life, sticking to his time at M.I.T. and his recent forays into astronautics. He realized abruptly that Dirk wasn't holding up his fair share of the conversation.

"So what do you do?" he asked. "I mean, obviously you're a lawyer, but… you know. You live here, too?"

Paul and Dirk both laughed. "God, no! Wife wouldn't stand for that!" Dirk said. "I'm from South Dakota. Trying to break into politics: I'm Congressman Emerson's aide. He's actually hearing your petition—I mean, NASA's petition. Quite frankly, I'm not sure that Mr. Yardley has much of a chance of convincing them, not even with his own Naval bodyguard. I'm sorry to say it, but sailors are dime a dozen these days."

"Actually, I'm a pilot," Al corrected. "I'm in the astronaut program."

"Ah, and if they scrap Apollo you won't be able to go into space!" Dirk said knowingly.

"They want to transfer me to Skylab," Al said. "The point isn't to get me to the moon, it's to get Americans to the moon."

"But we've already put Americans on the moon: twelve! Isn't that enough?"

"Fourteen," Al corrected. Damn, maybe Yardley was right about Apollo 18. "And we were supposed to get twenty up there. We're a little short of the mark."

"Fourteen, twenty, what's the difference?" Dirk challenged.

"Six, obviously," Al said acerbically.

Paul laughed. "Relax! He's trying to cut your teeth!"

Al looked suspiciously at his friend. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Dirk said. "Or is Yardley just going to show you off like a prize poodle?"

"He's not going to like it if I spill the game plan to the enemy's aide," Al warned.

"You'll have to excuse him," Paul said. "Al doesn't like lawyers."

"Yeah, well, I've had a bad experience," Al muttered, his mind involuntarily flying back to the bastard who had spirited Beth away from him.

"We're not all made to the same pattern," Dirk said peaceably. "You know, I was in my third year of law when Sputnik went up. When I heard they were going to put men into space, it was the only time I ever thought I might have made a mistake becoming a lawyer. What's the space program like?"

"I don't know," Al admitted. "All I've been through is check-up after check-up! I feel like a lab rat some days."

Dirk laughed. "Sounds like politics!" he said. "But you're lucky. You've got flight surgeons and physicists looking you over like a formaldehyde-pickled specimen ripe for the scalpel. I've got the press—and let me tell you, the only thing in South Dakota more ravenous than the press is the mosquitoes!"

"They're pretty bad in Florida, too," Al conceded. He knew he was being won over by the other man's charm, but he didn't really mind.

"Press or mosquitoes?" Paul asked.

"Mosquitoes. Second worst place I've ever been for them. I don't know jack about the press."

"Where's the worst?" Dirk asked conversationally, plucking the toothpick out of his glass and eating the olive.

Al shrugged, even though all this talk about mosquitoes was making his skin crawl with the memory of Nature's torturers. "I've heard the Dakota Territories are pretty bad."

Dirk feigned indignation. "Territories?" he blustered in a travesty of a Midwestern accent. "Why, mister, I'll have you know them there territories have been States of the Union for—whoo!—purty near ninety years now!" He chuckled. "Actually, I'm a born and bred Californian," he said, his normal voice resurfacing.

"Really? I spent some wonderful years in California," Al said, before his mind caught up to his mouth. "San Diego."

"What a coincidence!" Paul said. "Dirk's a San Diego man himself. His parents are still out there—aren't they?"

"Wouldn't leave it for the world. I never would have either, but my wife wanted a fresh start. Just as well. Pierre's a great town for the kids."

"How many is it now?" Paul asked. "Three?"

"Not 'till Christmastime," Dirk said proudly. "I'm hoping for another boy, but I think Liz has her heart set on a girl. When are you and Megan going to tie the knot?"

"Hah! She hasn't roped me yet!" Paul said. "What about you, Al? Any lucky lady in your life?"

"I'm coming around for my second pass," Al said. "Wedding's in September. Just a small thing. Neither of us have any family to speak of, and we don't want a fuss."

Paul whistled softly. "Got caught cheating?" he asked.

Al took a forkful of salad to give his voice time to control itself. "Not exactly," he murmured, still more haunted than he wanted to appear. He looked up and grinned. "Hey, you done any theater since the old days?"

The conversation climbed back uphill from there. Dirk was a nice guy, and Paul was almost as much fun as Al remembered. When the meal was finished and the three men rose to say good-bye, Al shook hands enthusiastically.

"Nice meeting you, Mr… uh…"

"Simon," Dirk said. "The pleasure was all mine, Lieutenant-Commander…" He paused expectantly.

"Calavicci," Al offered pleasantly.

Dirk's expression altered marginally. "_Calavicci_?" he repeated.

"Yeah, that's right," Al said. "It's Italian."

"Yeah, I know…" Dirk smiled, but he still looked strangely uncomfortable. "Hey, listen, I'll put in a good word to Emerson," he said. "About the petition."

"Thanks!" Al said. "I have a feeling we need all the help we can get!"

"Uh… don't worry about it…" Dirk said, strangely absent. "It's the least—least I can do."


	22. Chapter TwentyOne

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 

Throughout the afternoon's proceedings, Al sat next to Yardley, his ankles pressed firmly against one another to contain his restlessness. He was bored to tears. The only amusement he could find in the situation was watching the Congressman from Georgia struggle to stay awake. He was the oldest member of the committee, and he kept nodding off, rousing himself with snorts that really seemed to tick off the Congresswoman from Pittsburgh who was sitting next to him.

Otherwise, the hearing seemed to be shaping up into a genuine disaster. Yardley kept trying to steer his audience towards his point of view, but Emerson—who was the chairman—began to crank out progressively tougher questions. Al couldn't help but wonder whether interference from his aide was only making him more stubborn, and he shot one or two annoyed glances at the gallery, where a small crowd of lawyers—most of them young, attractive females who looked too cold to touch with a ten-foot pole—sat making notes or thumbing through folios. The weird thing was that when he did that he occasionally caught Dirk Simon in the midst of shooting him a haunted, almost guilty look. Maybe he wasn't so far off the mark.

Finally the proceedings were adjourned until tomorrow, and Yardley and Al made their way to the Associate Administrator's car. Al waited until they were safely on the road before erupting.

"This is a disaster!" he exclaimed, thumping the dashboard with his fist. "We're losing ground faster than we're gaining it! You keep up like this and you're damned right we'll be lucky if they don't make cuts to Skylab! What the hell are you doing?"

Yardley chuckled softly. "Tell me what I should be doing, then," he said.

"Show some backbone! Get up there and _tell_ them why you deserve their funding! Why they should find it an honor and a privilege to fund you! Make them feel guilty they can't blow the whole military budget on you! For God's sakes, stand up for yourself!"

"Calavicci, here's how it is," Yardley said. "I've been up in front of that committee singing for my supper so many times that they're sick of it. In their minds I'm associated with a big red line that just keeps getting redder and redder. They gave me almost everything I asked for for Skylab, and they're getting sick of giving."

"So then why the hell didn't NASA send somebody else to talk to them?" Al roared.

"They did," Yardley stated mildly.

"_What_? Then where is he?"

"Right next to me."

Al felt his stomach do an incredibly uncomfortable somersault. "Me?" he said. "No, I can't—"

"What do you mean, you can't? You didn't have any problem with the idea this morning."

"Oh. You mean testifying." Al allowed himself a nervous laugh. "I thought you wanted me to take over."

"I do," Yardley said. "Today I gave them the facts they need to make an informed decision. Tomorrow you're going to give them the vision."

"But—"

"Failing that, we turn on the pressure."

Al frowned. "Pressure?"

Yardley drummed on the steering wheel. "I had lunch with a couple of the boys from Public Relations," he said. "You should have come, Calavicci. It was an interesting meal."

"I bumped into an old friend and had lunch with Emerson's aide," said Al. "Nice guy. He promised to put in a good word for us. Between you and me I don't think it worked."

"Emerson has to give us a hard time: that's his job as Chairman," Yardley said dismissively. "What's important is how he rules—but as I was saying, it was an interesting meal. We got to talking about sports."

"Sports?" Al wasn't following the logic here.

"Baseball, specifically. What makes baseball popular?" he queried.

Al shrugged. "It's the best damn game there is."

"That's right!" Yardley said. "You played for Navy, didn't you?"

"All-star pitcher," Al said proudly, flexing the fingers of his right hand in recollection. He wasn't going to shed any tears over the fact that he'd never be in condition like that again.

"Perfect…" Yardley murmured. Then he continued aloud. "But sure, baseball's a great game, but so is chess. You don't see it getting the kind of press or popularity or money, do you? What does baseball have that chess doesn't?"

"Idiot appeal?" Al tried.

"Icons," Yardley corrected. "Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron. Men who symbolize the game and all that it stands for. Men who represent the finest aspects of America. Heroes. Superstars."

"So if chess had a Ty Cobb it'd make prime time?" Al asked skeptically.

"Chess was a bad example," Yardley allowed. "Look at lacrosse instead. If there were lacrosse players who embodied the American Dream the way the Babe did, the game would garner much more public attention."

"Maybe. Sounds like the PR boys are regular philosophers." Al rolled down the window on his side, gaining palpable relief from the action.

"Now what we need at NASA is an icon," Yardley continued. "If we're going to get public support and public money, we need somebody that folks can look up to and still relate to. Somebody who represents not just what we stand for, but what they stand for too."

"What, Yeager, Armstrong and Lovell not iconic enough for you?" Al asked.

"Unfortunately, they've all hung up their spacesuits," Yardley said. "Besides which, they're all cookie-cutter, picture-perfect middle class success stories. No, what we need is a fighter. Someone from an underprivileged background who rose above it to make something of his life. A kid from the ghettos of Los Angeles or the slums of New York, who's clawed his way up from rock bottom. A military man whose experiences cast a different light on recent operations. Someone who never gives up, no matter how stacked the odds are against him. A member of a visible ethnic group, especially one that maybe has been getting a lot of bad press from Hollywood the last few years. Somebody who's smart, tenacious, courageous, charismatic, good-looking, an experienced public speaker—"

"He'll also cure the blind, heal the sick, and walk on water," Al muttered. "Good luck finding him."

"Of course," Yardley said; "it would help if he was overcoming unusual obstacles in order to get into space, and he'd have to really believe in Apollo, or the public would see right through us… And then the boys from Public Relations asked me if I had any idea where they could find a guy like this. And I said—"

"Macy's!" Al snarked. "Special discount for senior citizens every Monday."

The car pulled to a smooth halt for a red light, and Yardley turned to regard his passenger solemnly. "Calavicci," he said; "a few weeks ago you made it plain that you'd do anything to get into space. How much would you do to keep Apollo afloat?"

"Whatever I had to," Al said, startled into verity by the unexpected question. "Whatever I had to."

"Anything?" Yardley pressed.

"Yeah." Al hesitated. "What did you have in mind?"

A curious smile lit upon Yardley's lips as he accelerated through the green light. "You'll see," he promised.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Phyllis Yardley had presided over an empty nest for the better part of a decade. All five of her children had moved on, and with her husband gone so often to Huston or Florida she was growing used to a self-sufficient and almost single existence. She had time now for whatever she pleased, and she reveled in the freedom to pursue her hobbies, which ranged from watercolors and crocheting to animal rights activism. No matter how much time passes since the last bird has flown, however, a mother's instincts remain.

So when the sobs sounded in the distance she awoke instantly.

She slipped out from under John's loving arm and put on her robe. Practiced feet wanted to carry her to the girls' rooms, but her mind reminded her that there was only one other person in the house: the astronaut who had come to help John with his Congressional hearings.

Phyllis knew, although she wasn't really supposed to, that this particular astronaut was the reason that John had had to be reassigned to Kennedy. He had special instructions to make things as easy for Albert Calavicci as he could: to put pressure on physicians to skew test results, to keep an eye on the other candidates, and to generally pave the road to the moon for him. Calavicci, however, wasn't making things easy. First there was his refusal to put on weight like he should. Then the outbreak of claustrophobia that he didn't want to treat. Now, admittedly through no fault of his, the whole program was about to be thrown out the window.

It wasn't fair that it was John's problem. His heart was in Skylab. Apollo was a thing of the past. What was the point of going back to the moon? It was a waste of time and money to keep sending men, now that it was plain that there was nothing there. At least, that was how Phyllis saw it.

It was easy for her to be hard on Calavicci, and a little unfair. After all, her own son had remained safely in the Home Guard while other boys had marched off to kill and be killed. He had never even come close to being captured by the horrible Vietnamese. Phyllis was glad. She wasn't blind. She could see the scars on her guest's wrists and arms, and the thinness that still clung to him like a shadow of privation. And she could certainly hear the broken sobs radiating from the guest bedroom.

She paused outside the door, listening to the sounds from within. Calavicci's voice filtered through, hoarse and broken.

"Why?" he moaned. "Why? Why couldn't you wait? Just a little longer, honey. Beth, honey, come home. Beth! Beth! Beth! Beth!"

A fresh sob broke out, and Phyllis opened the door. The dim light from the streetlamps illuminated the bed. Calavicci lay tossing fretfully beneath the covers, weeping in his sleep.

"No!" he cried. "No! Come back! I need you! I need you, Beth; come back to me!" There was a silence, and then his voice continued, a soft, shattered whisper. "I'm sorry," he breathed. "I'm sorry. Forgive me. I love you. Come home, honey. Please come home."

Phyllis tiptoed into the room and placed a cool hand on the clammy forehead. With a sharp intake of air, tormented eyes opened, and a flush of humiliation visited the pallid cheeks.

"Mrs. Yardley…" Calavicci muttered, trying to turn away from her. "I'm sorry.. I woke you up…"

"No," Phyllis fibbed. "I was already awake, but what on earth was that? It sounded like a terrible nightmare."

"It was just a dream," he mumbled, and she could tell that he was lying too. "I'm sorry."

"There's nothing to be sorry about," Phyllis soothed. She tried to stroke his hair, maternal instinct demanding that she soothe the anguish she could sense despite her personal sense of propriety and the fact that this was a middle-aged man, not a young child. He jerked his head away and sat up, drawing his knees towards his chest defensively. "Everybody has nightmares."

He snorted cynically. "Especially nutcases," he said.

Phyllis ignored this comment and fell back upon civility. "Do you want a glass of warm milk? That's what I like after a nightmare."

Al shook his head. "I hate warm milk."

He dabbed fiercely at his eyes, glaring at the coverlet. Phyllis decided to try again.

"What about a little brandy?" she asked. "John prefers brandy to warm milk."

He tried to stay silent, but the suggestion was obviously a welcome one. "Brandy'd be nice," he murmured.

Phyllis left him to raid the liquor cabinet in the den. When she returned he was propped up on the pillows, arms crossed over his chest and eyes closed. At first she thought he had fallen asleep, but as she approached he extended his hand for the tumbler. She set it in his grasp, and he drained it in one sharp gulp, grimacing a little as he swallowed.

"Thanks," he said. "That hit the spot."

"What were you dreaming about?" Phyllis asked gently. "It sounded dreadful."

"It was nothing," said Calavicci. "Just—it was nothing."

"It was something," she contradicted. "Something to do with someone named Beth."

"My wife—" he rasped brokenly, before he could catch himself. "I… I don't know why," he muttered dismissively; "but I haven't been able to get her out of my mind all afternoon."

"You split up?" Phyllis asked.

"Sort of."

"But you're going to be married again, aren't you?" she said, trying to cheer him up. "Elsie, isn't it?"

"Elsa," he said flatly. "I forgot about that."

"Well, you love her. She'll help you forget about the other one. I'm sure you'll be happier with Elsa than you ever could have been with Beth."

For a long time the guest was silent. Then he flattened the pillow and laid himself back down.

"Thanks for the brandy," he said. "I'm sorry if I woke you up."

Phyllis left the room and climbed the stairs. She crept into bed and cuddled close to John. Her heart did not rest easy that night.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

A few blocks from her apartment house was an all-night sports lounge. Thursday before dawn there was always boxing from Europe. Busy as she had been with Al, Elsa had not come out to watch for a long time. Now Al was in Washington, and she had found herself unable to sleep in her empty bed. So here she was, sipping a vodka and staring at the television set suspended from the ceiling. On the table in front of her sat Papa's box. She held its contents clutched firmly in the hand not occupied with the drink. There was no one else here at this early hour but a trucker snoring at a corner booth. Elsa watched the combatants in the ring halfway across the world, unable to look away as the blows fell with firm, satisfying thumps. Neither of the boxers was as gifted as one she had known.

Cold tears ran down her cheeks. She wished Al was here to drive away the memories.


	23. Chapter TwentyTwo

Note: Excerpts from "The Rice Moon Speech" © John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1962.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 

"Ladies and gentlemen, with all due respect the issue isn't how much you can afford to spend on Apollo: it's how little you can afford not to support it," Al said, his voice resounding very pleasingly through the room. "Almost thirteen years ago a promise was made to the American people. A vision was born. Today we're asking that you take the final step in keeping that vision alive. We're close, so very close to fulfilling the promise of twenty missions. You're letting one setback blind you to what we're trying to accomplish!"

"And what, exactly, is that?" Emerson asked dryly.

The question stopped Al cold. Until this point, they had just let him talk, and gradually the inertia of his monologue had banished the sheer terror that had seized him when he had stood up. It was actually quite a lot like being on stage, except that the script had been a vague thing in his mind until he opened his mouth. This, however…

He felt a supportive pressure on his ankle. Yardley's foot.

"We're expanding man's horizons," Al said, emboldened by the subtle show of confidence. "We're proving that nothing can stop us."

"Seven successful landings later, I think we've proved more than enough, don't you, Lieutenant?" Emerson asked. "I mean, let's be practical. We can obviously do it. The only time we didn't succeed was Apollo 13, and even then we made it _to_ the moon: we were just unable to land. Now Skylab will be able to provide a much more sophisticated site for micro-gravity studies, at less expense, greater convenience, and lower risk. The Apollo program has outlasted its usefulness and outstayed its welcome. It's time to let it die a peaceful death."

The finality and condescension in his tone was too much to be borne, even by a saint. And Al was by no stretch of the imagination a saint. "Look, you nozzle…" he blustered. The table in front of him aborted the threatening stride that he had intended to take towards the smug politician. The impact struck hard against the bone of his thigh, and he crumpled a little with a barely-suppressed snort of pain. Yardley seized his wrist and shook his head almost imperceptibly. Al took a deep breath and smoothed the front of his uniform in such a way that his medals caught the light. He blinked several times in rapid succession. The motion cooled his burning eyes.

"Senator, Apollo never has been about scientific advances," Al said. "It's about pride. Pride in our country. Pride in our abilities. Pride in our species. Look what we can do! My God, Congressman, we've put people on the moon!"

Pennsylvania giggled a little. _Now_ Al could see the shadow of victory in Idaho's dreamy expression. Georgia was dozing off again, but the tanned, younger-ish woman from Hawaii looked suddenly pensive. That was four out of seven who _weren't_ dead set against coughing up the dough.

The Congressman from Maine cleared his throat.

"Perhaps we should adjourn for the morning a little early," he suggested. "Just to give everyone a chance to reign in their emotions. After all, this isn't a Baptist prayer meeting."

There were some chuckles at this. Al's eyes narrowed, but he followed the prompt Yardley was sending by tugging on the hem of his jacket, and sat.

"I agree," said Emerson. "And you would do well to remember, Lieutenant, that pride goeth before a fall. We will reconvene at two o'clock."

He brought the gavel down with inexorable decisiveness.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

"You're doing fine," Yardley said, emptying a packet of sugar into his coffee and stirring it with mechanical precision.

Al barked out a very sarcastic laugh and reached for the Sweet 'N Low. "I'm shooting you in the foot. Better drop me before I miss and get you between the eyes."

"Don't be ridiculous: you're doing much better than I thought—Calavicci?" The Administrator frowned in sudden confusion.

"What?" said Al in some annoyance.

"Why do you use artificial sweetener when you're trying to put on weight?"

The absurd displacement of the question caught him completely off guard. Al blinked because he couldn't think of any other adequate response.

"You're quick," he said hoarsely. His voice gained more confidence as he segued into the wisecrack. "Really quick. You could probably win an argument with my girlfriend."

Yardley chuckled. "Wedding's in September, isn't it?" he said.

"Yeah, that's right," Al murmured, mixing the sweetener into his coffee. The truth was that Beth had started him on the habit. _Just in your coffee_, she had said. He liked it thick as syrup and it drove her crazy. _No other dietary restrictions until your fortieth birthday, I promise_. The thought made him shake his head morosely. She hadn't kept _that_ promise, either…

"As if she had a choice," Al muttered, hating himself for the bitter thought. It wasn't Beth's fault his diet had shrunk down to insignificant and inadequate and sometimes nonexistent. God, why was he so bitter? He didn't want to be bitter, but it was so hard not to be when everything was a struggle.

"I'm sorry?" Yardley said.

"Nothing." Al gestured dismissively. "September. The wedding's in September."

"That's perfect," Yardley said, almost gleefully.

Al frowned. "Has anybody ever told you that you speak in riddles?" he asked.

"Phyllis. All the time." Yardley dug out his stenographers' notebook. "The first thing we have to do is call Emerson on disrespect. You're not a Lieutenant, you're a Lieutenant Commander with excellent promotion prospects on the near horizon—"

"Bullshit if you want to, but _that's_ a lie," Al said. "My promotion prospects are, and always have been, crap." The words surprised him. Obviously he was much more comfortable around this man than he had thought.

Yardley favored him with an ironic smile. "You know, I'm beginning to see a pattern here," he said. "You haven't got a very good opinion of yourself, have you?"

Not _that _comfortable. Al took a slug of his coffee in order to evade the question.

"It isn't easy to readjust," Yardley continued. "No one expects you to do it alone."

His voice was level and respectful, and not in the least pitying or condescending. Nevertheless Al wasn't in the mood for this.

"We have a more pressing problem to deal with," he said curtly. "We can't just let them shut us down!"

"Calavicci, I—" Yardley stared deeply into Al's eyes. His expression was unreadable, but it made Al incredibly uncomfortable. Then suddenly the pressure was gone and the Associate Administrator was smiling wickedly.

"We won't let them shut us down," he said. "Public Relations have been in touch with the press. There's a great deal of interest in our little dilemma. All you need to do is get through this afternoon. By tomorrow morning it'll be all over the papers."

"I don't understand, sir," Al said. "Why on earth would the press care now? The last time they got worked up about Apollo was when Thirteen was in trouble."

"I told you before," Yardley said. "What the public wants is a star, an icon—a human face to the issue. We're going to give them one."

"I don't follow you, sir. I'm sorry." Al shook his head to emphasize his words.

"Calavicci, nobody wants to put you into an awkward position, but you are incredibly qualified for the task. You present an image that isn't just advantageous for us, but it's also too good for Congress to turn down. They were very eager to see you participate in the Apollo program before things started to go wrong. Once they realize that people want you up there they'll get behind you and hope nobody notices that they ever doubted us." Yardley kneaded the knuckles of one hand against the palm of the other, a little ruefully. "I don't want to push you into the public eye if you aren't willing, Calavicci. You have to understand what you're getting into. The press can be vicious."

"Yeah, so I've been told," Al said, thinking of Dirk Simon likening them to mosquitoes. "I don't care. I'm not giving up on Apollo. You need me for your poster boy, you've got me."

"That's the spirit, Calavicci!" Yardley exclaimed. "You and me, we can do this!"

"Yes, sir!" Al said, feeling his spirits rise again for the first time in weeks.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

There were telephones in the back hallway off of the room where the hearing was being held. Having finished lunch early, Al made his way towards these. He needed to talk to Elsa. Talking to Elsa would drive away the ghosts of Beth, or at least keep them at bay long enough for him to get home where he could bury his past pains in present pleasures.

He approached them to find Dirk Simon leaning against the wall, grinning enormously as he spoke into one of the phones with tremendous enthusiasm.

"You _did_? How high?" he said. Then, after a pause; "That's my boy!.. Really? How 'bout that! Listen, sport, what do you want Daddy to bring you back from Washington?… No, Mikey, somehow I don't think Mom would like it if I brought you home a bazooka. I'll find you something nice, I promise… Okay, big guy. Let me talk to Mommy now."

Al grinned. It was weird to think of a lawyer human enough to have kids. From the sound of it, Dirk was even a pretty decent father: calling home on his lunch break just to talk to his son. Al started towards a vacant phone as a more mature conversation started next to him, and the pitch of Dirk's voice fell a full third.

"Hey, Liz. How's—Liz? Lizzy, what's the matter?" Dirk frowned. "You what?… Honey, everybody has bad dreams—"

This was followed by a protracted silence. Al lifted a phone to his ear, but hesitated to dial up the operator. It didn't seem right to start up a romantic call to his fiancée while the guy next to him was obviously having a tense conversation with his wife.

Dirk was on the defensive. "No, no, honey, I'm not saying—settle down, honey—Liz, Liz, just calm down… No, no, I'm not saying you're overreacting. Just… Lizzy, honey, settle down. What's got you so worked up?… Maybe you should go and see Doctor Tim… It's not good for the baby for you to get upset like this…" He tensed. "Yeah, everybody _does _have bad dreams, but most people aren't still upset about them in the middle of the afternoon… aw, honey, not again…Liz, would you just… I'll be home the week after next; you know that. Liz—Liz, don't you—Don't use that tone of voice! You knew I was a lawyer when you married me—Well, fine, maybe I am! At least I'm not going to disappear on you the way y—Well, maybe that's cause it _is _new!… If it's not your fault whose is it? Mine?—Oh, just try it!" He slammed the phone down and leaned against the melamine divider, chest heaving with anger.

"Girl troubles?" Al said sympathetically.

Dirk turned to look at him. "Yeah, well, you know women. They get pregnant, and suddenly the whole world is out to get them. I phone her up to see how my little guys are, and she turns hysterical on me, shrieking about some dream she had. Then she tries to make me feel guilty for putting bread on the table. There are days I wish I was still single."

"Believe me," Al said; "it's not all it's cracked up to be. I lost my wife. Worst thing that ever happened to me." He didn't know why he was sharing this. Possibly because he liked this amicable bloodsucker and didn't want to see him make the same stupid mistakes he had. "Hold on tight, pal. Life only gives you one shot."

Dirk pinched the bridge of his nose and looked at Al again. "You really believe that?" he whispered.

Al couldn't speak for the lump of pain welling up in his throat. Beth. Oh, Beth, honey… He nodded. Dirk looked away. He was deathly pale.

"You were M.I.A. in Vietnam, weren't you?" he asked, his voice low and somehow defeated as if he was confirming something he wished desperately that he could deny.

Al stiffened. "How the hell did you know that?"

"I…uh…" Dirk faltered almost like a man groping for a lie. "I did a top line on you for Congressman Emerson. Know thine enemy." He clutched his head as if it hurt. His next words seemed more directed at himself than at Al. "God, you actually made it out."

Which meant that somebody close to him hadn't. Al put a firm but hopefully supportive hand on the bowed shoulder. "Better men than me didn't," he said.

"God…" Dirk scrubbed his face with the heel of his hand. He shrugged off Al's hand and straightened, digging in his pocket. "Listen… uh… Calavicci…" he said. "You're doing great up there, but Emerson is dead against you. Try this, okay? He's as Democrat as they come without actually having two left feet. You never know. It's worth a shot."

He handed Al a scrap of loose-leaf on which was scrawled two sentences. As he read them he could hear them in his mind as they had come across the airwaves in another lifetime.

The light came on. Blatantly obvious and yet elusive. And brilliant. Brilliant. "Kennedy!" he exclaimed. "Of course! Thank you!"

Dirk seemed unable to meet his eyes. "Sure," he said. "Sure. Least I could do."

He shuffled away, leaving Al with no thought at all of calling Elsa as he had intended: he was too busy reworking his closing statement. As he watched the lawyer vanish around the corner, however, Al couldn't help but pause to wonder what kind of guilty secret was eating away at the man's soul.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

"Your esteemed chairman has asked us, repeatedly," Al declaimed; "to account for Apollo's purpose. What we are here to accomplish. It is true that the lunar missions have done little to advance the political, military or even scientific causes of the United States. But politics advances on its own, and our military endeavors of the last decade have been at the same time necessary and superfluous. As for science, it cannot advance at all without first capturing the imagination."

He took a quick appraisal of his audience. Maybe it was just a delusion, but he thought for a second that he really did have them eating out of the palm of his hand. He continued. "If Galileo hadn't looked up at the stars, how would he have thought up the telescope? If Jefferson hadn't sat in the dark, how could he have dreamed up the light bulb? Apollo doesn't show us actualities: it shows us possibilities. If our determination can put a man on the moon, what obstacle is too great for us to overcome?

"Apollo isn't a politically or financially sound venture. It's a choice. A true American hero once said that we _choose_ to go to the moon. It isn't easy. It wasn't easy to get those rockets up there. It wasn't easy to watch the men on Apollo 1 die without ever leaving the ground. It wasn't easy when Apollo 13 was in critical danger, rocketing away from the earth with inadequate fuel for return. And it isn't easy now, when we're asking you, yet again, for more of America's money—the money that the people of this country have earned in hundreds of thousands of hours of honest labor. But we chose to keep the program going after that door failed. We—Congress and NASA and the American people—chose to keep the program going when the men of Thirteen made it back by the skin of their teeth. And we can choose now to keep the program going now.

"After all these years I think we can look back and we can say with confidence that Apollo has indeed served to 'organize and measure the best of our energies and skills', as it was hoped that it would. President Kennedy didn't just dream for himself. He dreamed for his country, and look where that has brought us! Two more flights. Two more flights is all it will take to realize the dream. I think a dream as noble as this one is worth a hell of a lot more than another seventy million, don't you?"

With that he saluted crisply and sat down.

Dead silence persisted for a full thirty seconds. Finally, Emerson cleared his throat.

"The committee will caucus. This hearing will re-adjourn on Monday for a rendering of its decision."

Down came the gavel.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Yardley clapped Al on the back. "That was perfect! You're a public speaking whiz!"

"Yeah, well, I didn't do it alone…" Al said, scanning the lobby fruitlessly for signs of Dirk Simon. "And anyway, it might have been a pretty speech, but that doesn't mean they'll renew our funding."

"Oh, they will," Yardley said. "Couple that performance with what Emerson's going to be reading over his morning coffee tomorrow, and they definitely will!"

"Listen, sir, about that—" Al began.

It was too late. Yardley pulled him through the doors, where they were mobbed by a crowd of reporters bearing microphones, pencils and cameras. A flash blinded Al momentarily as he hastened to don his hat. Then he forced his lips into an optimistic grin that was a mirror of the one Yardley wore, and tried to make out individual questions among the chatter as the terror rose in his throat.


	24. Chapter TwentyThree

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 

Elsa was resetting the Command Module Simulator for the support crew. The astronauts were conferring morosely with one another on the other end of the hangar. It was the general consensus that Apollo was doomed, and that Yardley and Calavicci were gone on a fool's errand. Elsa was more optimistic. No, that was not quite the word, but she believed fervently that as long as you fought hard enough you would succeed in the end, and she knew that Al would fight.

The hangar door opened, and Lieutenant Taggert came in.

"Fellas, would you look at this!" he crowed. "Papers just arrived—you won't believe it!"

The other astronauts gathered around, relieving him of the load of newspapers from across the country to which the base subscribed. Taggert ducked out of the throng of men, all of whom were exclaiming over whatever it was they were seeing.

"And one for the proud girlfriend!" Taggert exclaimed, jogging over to Elsa and giving her a copy of The Washington Post.

There on the front page, looking pensive and ascetic as he held one hand to his head, apparently caught in the act of doffing his hat, was Al. He stood next to a grinning Yardley on the steps of some impressive old building, in his immaculate dress whites with a distant look in his grave dark eyes. He looked so handsome and impressive that for a moment all that Elsa could do was stare. Then her eyes found the headline.

_War Hero Finds New Battlefield_, it proclaimed. The subhead continued in the same vein: _Hanoi Survivor Turns NASA Crusader_. Puzzled, Elsa started on the first paragraph. _A lifelong defender of the American way of live, Lt. Cmdr. Albert Calavicci appeared before a Congressional committee Thursday to stand up for a national dream. A former pilot and decorated Naval officer, Calavicci has set combat aside in favor of exploration. He is one of seven NASA hopefuls vying for a spot on Apollo 20, the final moon mission. A recent land equipment failure resulted in an indefinite delay in the launch of Apollo 19, originally slated for May of this year. Threats to the program's funding prompted the hearings at which Calavicci features as a star witness._

"_We can fight or we can quit," said Calavicci, who spent six years as a prisoner of the Viet Cong. "I don't think the American people are ready to give up on us."_

_Although records of the committee proceedings will not be made available to the press until a decision has been reached, NASA Associate Administrator of Manned Space Flight John Yardley indicated that Calavicci's testimony was riveting. "With men like him NASA can't lose," Yardley told reporters on Capitol Hill yesterday. _

_The committee will rule on the subject of NASA's funding and the future of the Apollo program when they reconvene on Monday. Critics of Apollo…_

It went on to address the issue in more depth, but there was nothing else about Al. Elsa frowned at Taggert, who was smiling broadly.

"Ain't it something?" he said. "There's a piece like that in every major paper in the country. Looks like you've caught yourself a superstar."

Elsa stiffened. From Al she would put up with a certain degree of male nonsense, but not from these other idiots!

"Lieutenant," she said firmly; "I am working. Take your comments and go away."

Taggert chuckled at shook his head. "Wonder if Calavicci knows what _he's _caught," he murmured. Then he moved to join his peers before Elsa could react.

Angry, she turned back to her console, but when no one was watching she stole another long look at the paper and the enchanting photograph of the man who would soon be her husband.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

After four days of being unexpectedly accosted by reporters at the strangest moments, Al though he had seen it all. As the car approached the little plane on the airstrip outside the city he realized that he hadn't. There on the runway was a little black car, and leaning against its hood was a leggy woman wearing a conservative suit and carrying a stenographer's notebook and a needle-sharp pencil. Dancing in attendance was a photographer with all the nervous energy of a hummingbird.

"Damn," Yardley said mildly as their own vehicle pulled to a halt. "Give her what she wants. We won't leave without you."

"You sure you have that kind of time?" Al asked with a salacious smirk, his eyes taking in the curves of the reporter's body.

Yardley chuckled. "You're not safe to be out," he said. Then he cracked his door. "I'll be in the plane."

Al grinned spiritedly. Yardley was a great guy, a really great guy. The kind of guy you could have a little fun with but still look up to. The kind of guy you could trust.

He retrieved his kit and the garment bag containing his dress whites before sidling over towards the woman.

"Why, hello there," he said. "What can I do for you, beautiful?"

She whipped out a business card, and he set down his kit bag to take it.

"Myrtle Wetherspoon, Chicago Sun-Times," she said, her voice sultry and at the same time professional. "And if you're Lieutenant Commander Calavicci, then you can give me a couple minutes of your time."

"You betcha," Al said. He knew the drill. First she'd ask about his place in the NASA organization, then for his opinion of Congress and of the ruling, then maybe how he liked his new peace-oriented role and whether he would consider combat duty again, despite his experiences in Vietnam. Overall, his war record seemed to be an interesting adjunct to the issue that every paper had mentioned in passing, but none of them had raped in detail.

So he wasn't at all prepared for this woman's approach.

"Our readership is very interested in your story," she said. "Let's be frank: Apollo is old news. Going to the moon, that's routine now. But you, Commander, _you_ are news! Everybody wants to know more about you, but my colleagues are all afraid to ask."

"And you're not," Al said warily.

"Definitely not. Could I pass up a scoop like this?" she asked.

"Apparently not, since you stalked me to the airport."

She waved her hand dismissively. "I couldn't find you at any of the hotels," she said.

"That's because I was staying with a friend," Al said. A warmth suffused his chest. That was exactly what Yardley was: he was a friend. Albert Calavicci had a friend!

"Oh!" She looked pleased, as if this was an accolade to her investigative efforts. "Anyway, I wanted to interview you privately, since I understand this is a part of your life that you wouldn't want to bring out in a press conference."

"And what makes you think I want to talk to you about it?" Al asked, shoving the card into the back pocket of his uniform pants and retrieving his bag from the tarmac.

"Come _on_, Commander! It's too good to pass up! Daredevil Naval pilot with a checkered past, captured by the VC, tortured for six years, now you're an astronaut! Not just any astronaut: the one who single-handedly saved the Apollo program! How has your time as a POW changed your outlook on life? To what degree do those experiences isolate you from the other astronauts? What obstacles are you facing as a result of that incarceration?"

Al gaped for a moment, then chuckled. "That's a good one. You're funny, dollface."

"I'm not joking Commander Calavicci. People are really interested in getting inside your head. Getting a first-person account of life in the infamous Hanoi Hilton." She fixed him with an inexorable journalist's eye.

"I'm not the best person to ask for that," Al said dryly. "I spent less than a year there, and most of that in solitary confinement. A really hilarious incident involving a stool convinced the VC that I was too dangerous to be kept in a camp with such well-established lines of communication."

She snapped her fingers and began to make notes. "That's _exactly_ the kind of details people are curious about," she said. "Would you care to elaborated on the circumstances that led to your transfer?"

Al was startled to realize that he actually paused to consider the request. "No!" he said, more abruptly than he had intended to.

Myrtle was not so easily swayed. "And where did they move you to?"

"Xom Ap Lo, thirty-five miles out of Hanoi," Al replied. "We called it Briarpatch."

"Why?"

"You know Brer Rabbit?" Al asked.

"No." She wore a very blank look that gave Al back some sense of control over the situation.

"Well, there's a story about how Brer Fox set a trap and caught Brer Rabbit. He was angry enough to kill, but Brer Rabbit said 'Hang me or drown me or eat me for dinner, but don't throw me in that briar patch, Brer Fox! Please don't throw me in the briar patch!'. So of course, that's just what the Fox did. Then Brer Rabbit scampered away laughing. 'You're a fool, Brer Fox!' he called. 'I was born and raised in the briar patch!"." Al smirked at the lost expression on the woman's face.

"I don't understand what that has to do with a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp," she said.

"Then allow me to explain," Al said graciously. "The camp commander—we called him Frenchie 'cause he spoke English with a thick French accent—he was a miserable weasel, but he was smart. Very smart. And his favorite trick was giving you enough rope to hang yourself, the wiley bastard. Just like Brer Rabbit did to Brer Fox. We'd always fall for it, too, like the miserable suckers we were. So a couple of us started up a joke about how he was born and raised in the briar patch. Besides, that place was a backwater Cracker hell. No electricity, no running water. Sewage holding pond seeped through the groundwater into the well. Add to that the local flora—Briarpatch is the perfect name." He smiled sweetly. "I hope that isn't too much information, darling."

She was scribbling madly in shorthand. "Not at all! Not at all!" she said eagerly. "So you spent the rest of the war there?"

"I spent ten and a half months there," Al corrected her. "Then I was handpicked as a special guest by one of the VC's heroes." As soon as the words were out he regretted it.

She pounced like a cougar. "You were moved to another prison?"

"No," Al said flatly. Prisons had rules. Prisons were accountable to the government—a government that even under Ho Chi Minh had some regard for propaganda and international appearances. Men in the prisons were fed twice a day. Men in the prisons had a change of fatigues and blankets in the winter and a regular ration of hot water.

"Where did they take you?" Wetherspoon pressed.

Al shook his head. "You'll excuse me, but we're due in Orlando in a couple of hours. I really have to get going."

Her face wilted with disappointment. She smelled a real scoop, but she couldn't have it. He wasn't going to let her have it. "But—"

Al patted her cheek condescendingly. "Look, if you're ever in Florida drop by the Space Center. I'll show you a good time and we can have a nice little visit, okay?"

She shook her head in disbelief, but seemed too derailed to comment as he strode off.

Al felt his legs trembling as he approached the plane. The memories were still too close to the surface. He could feel the sun on the back of his neck, although the sky above Washington was heavily overcast today. He could hear the noises: the VC going through their combat exercises on the other side of the compound, and beyond that the laughter of the village kids, the ones who would sneak up when you were helpless in the tiger cage and throw rocks and dog dung at you, and sometimes, when you were very weak or your wrists were shackled to the bars, creep near enough to poke you with sharpened bits of bamboo, lancing boils and blisters, digging in your sores, tearing open fresh scabs. Or who on hot days, when the sun burned strong enough to cook with and the air was heavy with the oppressive jungle humidity, would come up close with coconut shells full of water that they would suck noisily at or spray each other with, while your tongue felt like a hunk of leather and your mouth tasted of blood and bile and dust. He remembered one such day, when he hadn't had water for so long that he couldn't remember what moisture tasted like and the pain in his dry kidneys was like knives dipped in acid. Those little black-eyed brats had come up, taunting him, and instead of pretending that he could ignore them he had broken down. He had sobbed and wept and begged for just a little water, just a little water, just enough to wet his tongue, just a drop on his swollen, fissured lips. He had begged until his throat was raw and the inside of his mouth began to crack and bleed, before a guard heard the noise and came to chase the kids away. It had been two more wretched days before any rain had fallen.

His throat was dry, and his voice cracked as he greeted Yardley and stowed his baggage. There was a bottle of water in a cup holder between the two passenger seats, and he took it without bothering to ask permission, draining half the contents in one long inhaling motion. That helped, but he still needed something to chase away the ghosts.

"Hey, can I take her?" he asked, glancing covetously at the front of the small cockpit, where the Air Force pilot was waiting patiently for the all-clear from his passengers.

"Who, the reporter?" Yardley asked, looking up from the budget he was drafting. They had a hundred million to spend on Apollo now, granted by the committee much to Al's surprise, and Yardley looked to be trying to stretch it as far as possible.

"No, the plane. Can I fly the plane?"

Yardley didn't seem to know how to take the request. "I don't know, Calavicci," he said. "I don't much like flying under the best conditions, and it's been a long time since you—"

"Not that long, sir," Al said hastily. "I had to go through full re-certification in San Diego."

"I don't know, Calavicci. Better not."

"Sir, please! I've done everything you wanted me to, haven't I? We got our money. Please, let me fly her." It was a need, just like the night two weeks ago when he had awakened from nightmares and _needed_ intimacy with Elsa. He needed to fly again.

Some of the desperation he felt must have leeched into his voice, because Yardley's expression shifted marginally. "What do you think, lieutenant?" he asked.

The young pilot turned around, wearing a radiant smile. "I'd love to be copilot to Commander Calavicci, sir! It'd be an honor!"

Al punched him affectionately on the shoulder. "Lay it on a little thicker, kid," he said. "I don't think I've got a cavity yet."

"All right," Yardley consented. "Hurry up and get switched around."

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Flying wasn't like riding a bike. It wasn't like driving a car. Those were paltry symbols of independence. Flying was freedom in its purest form. In the air, there were no problems. Nothing existed but the sun and the clouds and the primeval spirit of liberty. Not even the eager chatter from the boy next to him could disrupt Al's joy. Everything was forgotten in the sublime glory of flight.

He didn't realize until he climbed out of the cockpit and dropped to the ground, ignoring the steps rolled up for Yardley, just how much he had forgotten. There was a small throng of reporters waiting to mob him as soon as the air traffic men let down their guard. And on the edge of the group of Air Force officers waiting to welcome the triumphant delegates was a petite, gorgeous redhead with a lab coat over her emerald-colored dress. As Al strode away from the plane she came running to his arms with a joyful Hungarian exclamation. He caught her and swung her around in a moment of bliss that the photographer from the Miami Herald captured exquisitely for publication on the front cover of the morning edition.

Neither Al nor Elsa realized the picture had been taken. They were too enthralled by one another. She had not realized how important his presence was to her until she felt his absence, and for him it was the kind of homecoming his heart had ached for for longer than he cared to admit, even if it was a different homecoming and a different woman. His lips found hers with ravenous abandon, and they lost themselves in the embrace, oblivious to the hoots and catcalls from the soldiers and the eager ogling of the press. And still less aware of Yardley's self-satisfied smile as he took in the spectacle in its entirety.


	25. Chapter TwentyFour

Note: Many thanks to the real Ildiko, who has been instrumental in the Hungarian profanity-and-insults department!

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

"I don't believe that you want me to do this!" Elsa cried, stomping her foot so hard that her curio cabinet shuddered.

Al's brow furrowed. "I didn't think it mattered," he said.

"Mattered? Of course it mattered—matters!—_bena hapsi_!" Elsa roared. "You tell me a strange woman is coming to take over my wedding and it doesn't matter?"

"She's coming to help you, not to take over!" Al protested. "And that's weird, because I thought it was _our_ wedding! I'm certainly paying for it!"

"And who asked you to?" Elsa shouted. "I have plenty of money: I can pay for it! And I do not want it to be a NASA circus!"

"Fine!" Al bit back. "Fine! So we go to City Hall—"

"I'm not going to marry outside of the Church!" Elsa shrieked.

Al scowled at her. She was the most illogical scientist Al had ever met. "—or we drive down to the rectory on a Saturday afternoon, and Father What's-His-Name—"

"Damjanov!"

"—marries us in his living room with his housekeeper as witness!"

"What about our plans, then?" Elsa snapped.

"Plans? So far you've booked the church and we're looking into restaurants for the dinner!" Al cried. "You haven't even decided on flowers!"

"It's bad luck on a marriage not to break bread with the family and friends!" Elsa exclaimed.

"We don't have any family!" Al said. "All mine are dead, and yours are back in the Old Country! If we have a reception it's going to be a NASA event whether we want it to be or not, so Mrs. Yardley might as well help you!"

"I don't need help!" said Elsa.

"What? All you've done for the last two months is complain about how much work this is! I can't help you: I'm up to my eyeballs in training and this stuff with the press! Phyllis Yardley is a great woman, and she's married off four daughters. She'll know what needs to be done…"

"_I _know what needs to be done!"

"Yeah, if we're having a party for twenty people!" Al retorted. "But there's going to be about a hundred—"

"_A hundred?_"

"Yeah, well, between the people from NASA and—"

"No, no! No people from NASA! We were inviting my landlady, and Yardley, the Taggerts, Melanie and Joseph—"

"Look, here's how it is!" Al exclaimed. "Whether we like it or not—and I don't like it!—things aren't the same as they were when we made that list! If you want a quiet wedding, it's you, me and Father What's-His-Name. If you want a party with your neighbours and your feminist friends, then we're going to have to invite the other astronauts and—"

"Who's said this? Who got to you?" she demanded. "John Yardley?"

"He didn't _get_ to me, Elsa: he explained the situation, what the press are expecting, and then he said that his wife—"

"You want to turn our wedding into a _publicity stunt_?" Elsa cried. "You—you—_elfajzott! Átkozott te, buta férfi! Buta, buta férfi_!"

"Damn it, Elsa, whether you like it or not the press is going to be all over this marriage! Wouldn't it be nice if we were at least prepared?" Al demanded.

"Out!" she shrieked, pointing imperiously at the door. "Get out of my apartment! _Menj a pokolba_!"

"Oh, I wouldn't stay here one more minute if you paid me, you stupid, unreasonable cow!" Al barked. "I come here offering help and you pull a Mount Katami!"

"I just don't want this to turn into a freak show!" Elsa shrieked.

"Yeah, well, that's exactly what it's going to be, if we even go through with it, so _xin loi, mihn oi_!" Al snarled. He marched to the door, yanked it open, and strode away into the corridor.

Elsa followed with an enraged exclamation. She grabbed his arm and yanked him around so that he was facing her.

"What did you say to me?" she demanded fiercely. "That was not Italian! What did you say to me?"

Sparks flew between the cold sapphire eyes and the lusty dark ones. "I said _xin loi, mihn oi_. It means," Al said, his voice slow and very deliberate and thick with anger; "_too bad, honey_."

He grabbed her shoulders and kissed her once, so hard as to be almost violent, then released his hold abruptly and marched away. For a moment silence reigned behind him. Then a sharp Hungarian expletive tore the air, and Al ducked as a black leather pump narrowly missed his head. As he hastened around the corner towards the stairs he heard her slam the door to her apartment with such force that the corridor seemed to quiver.

MWMWMWMWMWMWM 

It had been one hell of a month. Between training and psyche sessions and reporters trying to dig just a little deeper into the mind of NASA's unconventional mascot, Al had had hardly any time to work on his relationship. The reporters still asked questions about Apollo, but now they were trying to press the Vietnam thing. Al had no idea what the reporter from Chicago had done with the random bits of information he had fed her, but her partners in crime were doing their best to dig up all the dirt they could. He'd been confronted with that damned photograph no less than seven times. The Herald had even tracked down Bobby White, the MIA who had been liberated with him. Al wasn't giving, but that didn't mean that he liked the attention. Nevertheless, Yardley wanted him to play along, and he was willing to do whatever it took.

The problem was that Elsa didn't seem nearly as willing. Quite the contrary: she resented the time that he spent fielding questions and adorning the set whenever somebody at Kennedy put out a press release. And now she didn't want Phyllis Yardley helping with the wedding.

Al was out of his depth. He loved weddings, but he didn't know the first thing about planning them. When he'd married Beth she and her mother and her sister had arranged everything. All he'd had to do was show up at the church with an almost-sober Chip in tow. Getting help for Elsa had seemed perfectly sensible.

After the fight he got out on the freeway, zipping along in his sleek green car. After a while the anger started to dissipate, but the lingering pressure from the kiss did not. He began to feel the need to hold her, to make wild, passionate love to her.

His pride wouldn't let him apologize, though. He knew that. She was the one being unreasonable. It wasn't his job to apologize. So he needed a distraction. He'd get some supper, that's what he'd do. Mexican. He'd kill for a chicken quesadilla right now. Yeah, he'd get some food and then he'd track down a party. Maybe he'd head over to _The Black Flamingo_ for a little dancing.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Elsa hated it when they fought. She did, she really did. Every time she fought with Al she found herself wishing that Andrew were here. But she couldn't think about Andrew. Andrew was gone forever, and she had to move on. She had to. The trouble was that she kept expecting Al to be just like Andrew, and he wasn't. And it wasn't fair to expect him to be.

After the anger died and the frustration petered out Elsa began to feel a deep, hollow desolation. She wandered the apartment aimlessly, empty and exhausted. Her feet found their way to the bedroom, and her hand reached instinctively for the box. She stopped herself.

It wasn't right. Andrew was gone, and she was going to be married to Al. She had to forget.

A mean voice whispered that Al hadn't gotten over his first love. Lieutenant Commander Elisabeth Calavicci, a Naval nurse. She knew only what she had read in Al's files: they had been married for eight years and he Missing In Action for two when the Navy had finally declared him dead, and she had remarried. Sometimes after they made love she could hear Al calling out to her in his sleep.

It was different, she told herself. Al had actually been married. He had lived with the woman for eight years. He couldn't be expected to move on, not when she couldn't even forget a man she had _not _even married, who had been _gone _for eight years. A man whose death was her fault.

She turned her back on the box. She had to forget. She had to move on. She was going to marry Al. That meant that they would have to patch up today's argument. She would have to apologize.

Her pride did not want to allow that, but her reason told her that she had overreacted. They could have discussed the whole thing like adults. She could have listened before she started shouting. She had to make it up to him.

She went to the closet and brought out a box, something she had planned to save for the honeymoon. Well, she could always have the fun of picking out another one. She packed an overnight bag and took the key to Al's apartment out of the crystal dish by the door. She would surprise him. She didn't love him, not the way that she had loved Andrew, but she wasn't going to lose him the way she had lost Andrew, either.

MWMWMWMWMWMWM 

It was four in the morning when Al finally left the disco joint. He left alone. None of the girls there, nice as they were, were ample substitute for Elsa. Damn, he liked her. Stubborn and illogical and impossible as she was, he really liked her.

He decided to forgo the elevator, and mounted the stairs to his floor. In the dark he found the fridge and poured himself his nightly glass of whole milk. Thanks to Elsa's cooking, to say nothing of her nagging, he had finally passed the fifteen-pound mark, but it was habit by now. He found a bizarre comfort in habit. Routine. That was one reason why he had to get married. The spontaneity of his life was fun, but it was also exhausting.

He didn't bother with the light in the bedroom either, as he stripped off his sweaty clothing and deposited it in the laundry hamper. Massaging his neck with one hand he pulled back the covers, which seemed oddly loose, and crawled into bed.

He rolled against something warm and silky, and he awoke out of the pre-slumber stupor with a sharp gasp of surprise. The body next to him stirred with a soft sigh, and suddenly lissome arms were twining around his neck.

"Al…" Elsa's voice murmured. "Al, I'm sorry. We should not fight over such stupid things."

"Hey, beautiful…" Al breathed, his hands finding her hips. She was wearing a silk satin negligee that he didn't recognize. Part of him wanted to turn on the light and examine it. Another part wanted to continue this dreamlike encounter in darkness, and maybe he could pretend, just for one glorious moment, that it wasn't Elsa in bed beside him. Remorseful at this horrible, selfish thought, he found her lips and kissed her.

"I'm sorry," she repeated. He kissed the top of each breast, then the delicate, chiseled arc of her collarbone. "Of course you must have a wedding that will make a good show. I understand you are a public figure now. I'm sorry we fought."

"Mmm…" Al exhaled. "Me too?"

She worked her fingers up and down his back. "I know," she whispered, guiding his hand up to a ribbon at the low neckline of her garment.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Elsa stared at her reflection in the mirror, as Phyllis Yardley buttoned up the pearl beads fastening the back of the white silk gown. She couldn't believe that she had ever argued the idea. The woman behind her was an angel in disguise. She had handled every detail capably and without complaint. Everything was perfect. Perfect.

"There! Beautiful!" Phyllis said, regarding her handiwork.

"Yah, she is beautiful!" _Assony_ Badea agreed. Elsa took her eyes away from her reflection to smile at her landlady, the nearest thing she had to a mother in this country. "Beautiful. She marry her dark astronaut, have many children."

"Oh, I'm not going to have any children!" Elsa laughed.

"Sure you have children!" the middle-aged Hungarian lady said firmly. "Have children, be happy! Today I leave my window open. In comes a robin, sits on top of my piano! Then I have a call from Mister Rodinyovich on fourth floor: a blue jay has flown into his flat! Two birds in the house today! It is good luck on the marriage! Have many children, long life together."

"Is that a Hungarian legend?" Phyllis asked, smoothing the taffeta skirt.

Elsa nodded, and _Assony _Badea clapped her hands proudly. She was going to tell this story to everybody willing to stand still long enough to hear it. "Many, many children!" she repeated. "Having lady in waiting with child is good luck on the marriage, too. Life and happiness!"

"Matron of honor, not lady in waiting," Elsa said. She turned back to the mirror so that she could see Lauren Taggert tying the sash of her blue frock. None of Elsa's old friends from school had been able to come out for the wedding, so she had chosen Lauren. They weren't friends. She did not really have any friends. But she was a nice woman, and her husband was Al's friend. In fact, the Lieutenant was Al's best man. "Lauren? How is the dress?"

"It's beautiful," she said. "You look like a princess."

"Not my dress, yours!"

"Oh…" Lauren came up to look at the mirror. Her hands smoothed the front of her dress. Her round body was rounder than usual, filling out with the child growing under the broad sash. She frowned, her pretty, plump face furrowing a little. "I don't know," she said self-consciously.

"I mean, is it comfortable?" Elsa said. "It looks perfect."

Lauren hugged her. "It's fine. Elsa, you're so lucky! He's wonderful!"

"So is Jim," Elsa said graciously. Actually, she thought that Lieutenant Taggert was almost as bad as Al, which was probably why they got along so well.

"Ah!" cried the landlady. "Ah! They will be so happy!"

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Al stood at attention, proud and confident in his dress whites. The church was full of uniforms: Navy, Air Force, even the odd Army ensemble. Admiral Delaney was present, and one or two Captains Al had known way back when. The priest was a Naval chaplain, which Elsa had not been too thrilled about, but had agreed to in the end. Next to him, resplendent in Air Force full dress, stood Jim Taggert.

Then the music started up, and down the aisle came Jacobs' five-year-old daughter, Crystal, carrying a little basket full of roses. The reporters covering the wedding from the aisle seats snapped photographs of the golden-haired child. Behind her came Lauren Taggert, wearing a tiny shy smile. As she took her place opposite her husband Al winked at her.

"You look gorgeous!" he mouthed, enjoying her flush of pleasure. Then Elsa appeared, and he fixed his eyes upon her.

She clung lightly to John Yardley's arm, Smiling despite the blinding flashes from the cameras. Al squared his shoulders as his bride approached. She looked radiant. Absolutely radiant.

For a second her hair was dark and silky, and the flowers spilling over her fingers were calla lilies… but before the pain could rise to his throat Yardley was putting the delicate hand with its manicured talons into his.

"Hey, beautiful!" Al murmured as they turned together to face the priest, also in full dress.

Elsa smiled, and her blue eyes sparkled.


	26. Chapter TwentyFive

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 

And then there was silence. The mighty monolith with its fragile, tiny cargo—the ants that had wrought it as their creature and subordinate but were now infinitely at its mercy—stood erect and alone, abandoned by its scores of scurrying attendants. For a moment it remained thus, a voiceless temple to man's ingenuity and pride, for a brief instant eternal in its stillness. Then from within the belly of the beast came the rumblings of destiny. Smoke poured from its base and the red arms that had held it captive swung away. Fire and ice showered the earth that this behemoth scorned by its very existence. The metal monster shivered and shuddered, and slowly, slowly its unwieldy and yet graceful mass rose, defying that greatest of all foes: the gravitational pull of the rock beneath it. With its needle-capped tip pointed towards the heavens it began its impossible ascent, and the roar of its passage was the sound of ten thousand years of cumulative human triumph.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

The last trail of white vanished, and Al let out a breath that he had not realized he was holding. He felt long-nailed fingers take hold of his arm, firm and proud as if revelling in his exultation at the sight he had just witnessed.

The cheers of the other spectators began to die away. Al tore his eyes away from the now-empty sky to find Elsa gazing up at him.

"I have seen so many launches that I thought I could not be impressed by one," she murmured, cuddling against him on the hard bench of the bleachers. "But to you it is new. It is magical."

"Very magical," Al breathed, wrapping his arm around her.

"You really do want to go into space, don't you?" she said. "It is the most important thing to you."

"A guy has to have something to reach for," Al said.

"Commander Calavicci! Could you give us a couple minutes?" an obnoxious voice with a familiar cadence called out.

Al looked down towards the crowd of reporters gathering nearby. He sighed. This was getting pretty old. He was sick and tired of evading question after question about his years as an M.I.A. It was getting to the point where he almost wanted to spill his guts about the whole thing just so they'd go away, but he knew full well that he would never forgive himself if the story of those lost years of anguish and terror found its way onto the front page of the New York Times.

Elsa patted his arm and wrinkled her nose wryly. She hated it no less than he did, and resented the intrusion upon their life. Since the wedding—just over two months now—some of the pressure had been transferred to her. From the major fashion magazines gushing over her wedding dress to the home and garden people snooping around the house, Elsa had a lot of garbage to put up with—and the undeniably "good little wife" slant that the media seemed bent on putting to her drove her up the wall. Only a couple of California papers, anxious to claim her as their own, and the ever-candid Boston Globe had even mentioned her role in the space program.

To his surprise she smiled a little now. "Were it done, when it's done, do it quickly," she said.

Al laughed, both at the sentiment and the awkward misquote. "We givin' them what they want, today?" he asked.

Elsa shrugged as they got to their feet. "That depends what they want!" she said.

He chuckled again as he climbed down past the other spectators, most notably Roosa's wife, who had come out from Houston for the launch. Al reached up to offer Elsa a hand as she stepped nimbly after. To his surprise she clung to his shoulder in a very photogenic way as he approached the crowd of ravening coyotes. He wrapped a grateful hand around the supple curve of her waist. Apparently they _were_ going to play the America's Favorite Couple game today.

"Good morning, gentlemen!" he said brightly, blinking against flashbulbs.

"Lieutenant Commander! What are your feelings about the launch?" one of them asked eagerly.

"Well, I think it's a triumph!" Al said, sending the note-taking types scribbling and the microphone-bearing types scrambling for a clear field. "Not just for those men in that capsule, or the people who fought so hard for Apollo's funding, but the American people, all of mankind—"

Elsa thumped her hand against his chest.

"I'm sorry," Al said; "I meant to say all of _hu_mankind. All of humankind. It took us centuries—thousands of years to progress to the point where we can do something like this, and every time we send up another mission we show it's not just a fluke. It's a new skill, a new ability that we have."

There was some more gratuitous photo-snapping.

"Commander! How do you respond to critics who say that the Apollo program has outlived its usefulness, and we should pour all of our energy into the proposed Shuttle?"

"First of all, it's not a _proposed _Shuttle. It's actually happening," Al said. "I think it will serve its purpose for science, but it's never going to be the tool for unity and pride that Apollo is. And unity is important. I think this country deserves something it can feel proud about!"

That was a tactical error.

"You mean after the fiasco in Vietnam!" some carrion-fowl shouted.

Al fell back on stock responses. Now and then Yardley replenished his supply.

"Vietnam wasn't a fiasco. We did some very important things, and we made some very terrible mistakes, but it wasn't a fiasco," he said. "It's an experience that I think will prove to be an important chapter in our journey to becoming a mature nation."

The floodgate was opened. "As a former prisoner of war, how do you feel about activists like Jane Fonda who called servicemen like yourself baby-murders and criminals?"

Elsa hugged Al more tightly as he stiffened against this one. _You black air pirate. You make crimes of aggression against peace-loving people of Vietnam. Confess bad crimes, we forgive. Continue obstinate and be serious punished…_ A forced laugh reached his lips.

"Well, hell, the VC said that all the time!" he quipped. "I gotta tell you, Jane Fonda has better legs than Ho Chi Mihn!"

The reporters laughed appreciatively. A woman in an unnecessarily pink suit jostled for their attention.

"Mrs Calavicci! Our readers want to know when the first bundle of joy can be expected!"

Elsa tossed her head so that her earrings sparkled. "We are both too busy for babies right now," she said. "Al has to get to the moon, and I am busy trying to get him there. Our duty to the State must come before any little children!"

Cameras clicked madly. "Commander Calavicci! Will you be on the crew of Apollo 20?"

"The roster hasn't been announced," Al said. "But I'm going to do my damnedest to qualify!"

"But do you think you'll be chosen?"

"I hope so!" Al said. "Who wouldn't want to go to the moon?"

_MWMWMWMWMWMWM_

A similar circus was held eight days later, when Roosa and his crew splashed down with picture-perfect precision after a gloriously successful flight. It was strange, but Al seemed to garner more media attention than the returning astronauts. Everybody wanted his opinion on everything from the mission to Jane Fonda's latest flick. That comment about her legs had made the headlines in at least three papers, although most of them had the decency to latch onto the more PR-sanctioned remarks about maturing as a nation (brain-child of one of Yardley's protégés in Washington). It wasn't until two days after splashdown that Al was confronted with the ugliest by-products of the launch interview.

It was Jim Taggert who finally had the decency to tell him. He cornered Al as he left the simulator hangar after a successful lunar landing.

"Hey, Al," he said, producing a stack of papers. "The guys… everybody was scared to tell you, but I think you ought to know before the scabs try and spring it on you."

"Know what, Jimbo?" Al asked. The young lieutenant was the closest thing he had to a friend among the astronauts, though he honestly couldn't see why Taggert liked him.

"What the supermarket rags are saying."

"About me?" Damn, he could see it now. _Claustrophobic Astronaut!_, _Former POW Has Flashbacks in the Simulator!_, _Calavicci Claims "The Vietcong are Aliens"!_

Jim shook his head. "About Elsa."

He held out a stack of tabloids. On top as a copy of the National Enquirer, adorned with a snap of him helping Elsa descend the bleachers. Her head was tilted at an odd angle so that her eyebrows seemed to arc, Vulcan-style, straight towards her hairline. The headline read _"Duty to the State" Comes Before Duty to Husband_. Al frowned and grabbed the next one. It had a different cutting-room reject of the two of them clinging to each other, Elsa's face lowered in a private smirk, probably just after the Jane Fonda quip. _Astronaut's Wife a Soviet Spy_, the headline screamed. The whole stack followed in the same vein: _War Hero Playing House With Ruskie Informer_; _KGB Agent Vows "No Kids for Calavicci"_; _Commie Bride Pulls Wool Over POW's Eyes._

Al looked up at Taggert, who was watching him anxiously. Al chuckled. "This is great!" he said.

Jim stared at him in disbelief. "_Great_? Al, they're saying she's a—"

"A Soviet spy, yeah, I know. It's 'cause she said "State" instead of "States"! This is hilarious! She's gonna get a kick out of it!"

"You're kidding, right?" Jim said anxiously. "You're trying to laugh it off. I mean, Elsa's an American citizen and everything! This is just disgusting!"

"It's just drivel, is what it is," Al chuckled. "They could have said she was an alien warrior-queen, or a reincarnation of Ivan the Terrible, or a cross-dressing VC sergeant in a bad wig! It's not like anti-Soviet sentiment's riding high: they're just trying to start a conspiracy theory. We'll laugh about it: you'll see!"

_MWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Elsa stared at the papers spread across the dining room table. Her hands trembled. Watching from his seat near the sideboard, Al reflected that maybe they _weren't _going to laugh about it after all. Finally, Elsa found her voice.

"Are the good papers saying it, too?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"The Times and the Herald and the Tribune. Are they saying these terrible lies?"

"What? No! No, of course not! Yesterday's Tribune had a story about my Golden Globe championship match, and I think the Times might actually be getting bored of interviewing men who knew me from the camps." Al puffed on his cigar and grinned. "It's just the bottom of the barrel trying to sell birdcage linings."

"Mmh…" Elsa said distractedly, staring at the one that identified her specifically with the KGB. Al got to his feet and curled his hand around her waist, drawing her backwards against him and rocking from side to side.

"Whaddaya say you and I go and have a nice, long, hot bath," he suggested in a sultry voice, exhaling a cloud of cigar smoke around her. She loved the smell 'cause it reminded her of her father.

Elsa spun in his arms and suddenly she was grabbing the back of his neck with one hand and groping down the front of his shirt for his dog tags with the other, kissing him madly. She had a thing for his dog tags: holding them, stroking them. Sometime she'd kiss them. It was hilarious to think of a patriotic little trick like her as a Soviet agent. Just too bad she didn't see it that way.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Two weeks before Christmas NASA held a press conference to announce that the internal damage to the S-II that should have gone up with Apollo 19 had finally been deemed _insufficient to pose serious risk to space flight, _and that the module would be refurbished for use in Apollo 20. As usual when such proclamations came down Al featured prominently on the panel, in this case more to ensure ample attendance by the media than because he had anything even remotely useful to say on the matter. After the pertinent questions had been taken by Yardley and his fellow astronautical engineers the snoops inevitably turned their attention on Calavicci, the hottest paper-seller to come out of NASA since the glory days of the Apollo 13 crisis. It was usually at this point that the more odious questions about Vietnam would surface. Today, however, the first question to ring out was in quite a different vein.

"Lieutenant-Commander Calavicci! How do you respond to the rumors that your wife is in fact a Soviet spy?"

Al leaned forward into his microphone. "How would _you _react to a rumor like that?" he asked.

"It's ridiculous!" Yardley cut in. "Elsa Calavicci is an upstanding woman and a fine scientist. She's been a citizen of this country for twelve years now. Next question!"

The reporters didn't catch the hint that the Associate Administrator didn't want this topic brought up again.

"But Commander, isn't it true that she's a native of a Red country?"

"That's right, she was born in Hungary," Al said.

"Why did you marry her?"

"Why does anybody get married?" Al asked. He rolled his eyes and said with good-natured sarcasm; "I always wanted to kiss a Commie!"

Everyone laughed.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

The day after that the astronauts started in with crisis training again, and Al saw very little of Elsa, except in the mornings when she was running the LEMS. He fared much better than he had the last time, which meant that a year of intensive psychotherapy had to be working. Nevertheless, he wasn't sorry to see the back of the Kennedy Space Center as he headed home at the end of that grueling, sleepless week.

The house that they had bought was a costly split-level, for which Al had shelled out a hundred and ten thousand dollars of cold, hard compensation cash. No mortgages for the Calaviccis! Elsa had furnished it from a fund to which they had both contributed. All of the furniture she had chosen was dark, heavy neo-Victorian stuff, incredibly expensive and as far as Al was concerned, vulgar as hell. He would have liked to decorate the house in bright colors and plastics, maybe a couple of beanbag chairs and some Day-Glo velvet paintings. However, a woman's home was her castle, and after all Al just lived there. It was a quantum leap up from some accommodations this sailor had seen in his lifetime, anyway.

Elsa had obviously gone to bed, and Al was too tired to eat, so he opted to forego the ordeal of feeding himself. He did take his milk like a good little astronaut, however, and then ascended the short flight of stairs to the bedroom.

Elsa was sitting up in bed, wearing the black silk negligee with the spring-loaded ribbon to which she had introduced him on the morning after the Great Wedding Fight. Of all her lingerie it was Al's absolute favorite. She had a copy of Sense and Sensibility in her hand, and she was so rapt in the story that she didn't seem to hear him come in.

"Hey, beautiful," Al said, peeling off his uniform. She didn't respond. "It's been one hell of a week, and I'm dog tired," he continued; "but I'm glad you don't think I'm too worn out for a little hanky-panky."

She turned the page with a crisp snap.

"Jim and I, we were saying that if they base the roster on this week, it'll be me and Simmons and Jacobs. I hope not. Simmons is a great guy, but that redneck gets under my skin," Al continued. Still, Elsa didn't seem to hear him.

Having finished stripping down, Al climbed into bed next to his wife and kissed her neck. She didn't respond. Then with one hand he gently drew the book out of her grasp, while the other found the ribbon and tugged it.

Elsa slapped him full across the face. "Don't you touch me!" she snapped. "Don't you touch me, telling the reporters I'm a Commie!" She followed this up with a Hungarian insult Al hadn't been privileged to hear before.

"What?" Al said, bewildered. "I didn't—" Then he remembered. Yeah, he had cracked a joke like that, hadn't he?

Elsa threw a copy of the National Enquirer at him. The headline read _Calavicci Views Red Marriage as Adventure_.

"You say you like to kiss me because I am a Communist!" Elsa accused, her accent thickening and her diction deteriorating as they always did when she was angry. "Well, I am not a Communist, so I guess you can just not kiss me, stupid nozzle!"

Al stroked her arm. "Baby, it was just a joke. Everybody knew it, and—"

"Did you say it, or didn't you?" she demanded.

Al frowned. "Well, yeah, sort of, but it wasn't like that. These tabloids, they're more fiction than fac—"

With an indignant snort that was almost a sob, Elsa threw her head down on the pillow, turning her back to him and screwing her eyes tightly closed.

For a minute Al hesitated, his hand hovering over her beautifully browned shoulder. But he was tired, he was exhausted, and he just couldn't make up tonight. He turned off the bedside lamp and lay down.

At first he thought that he couldn't sleep because the fight had upset him. But as time dragged by and he tossed and turned next to Elsa's peacefully slumbering form, he began to realize that that wasn't it at all. It was the bed. The mattress was pressing painfully against him. His back ached from resting in an S-conformation. His skin tingled painfully, dissatisfied with the softness of the cotton sheets. The gentle warmth of the clean, fragrant blankets was oppressive and miserable. No matter how he turned in the springy comfort of the bed he just couldn't settle. He just couldn't. His eyes were wet with tears of frustration and sheer exhaustion, but whatever way he turned the softness was unbearable.

He had to sleep. His body craved sleep. His mind was sobbing and begging for it. He had hardly slept at all this week. He was so tired, but they wouldn't let him sleep. It was harder to resist them when you were hallucinating. This place they had left him, with the warm, soft, soothing surroundings and the consolation of another body beside him, it was just a trick. A trick. He couldn't sleep here. It was a trick.

Before he knew what he was doing Al got out of bed. In the darkness, his bare feet found their way to the bedroom door. He needed to sleep. God, God, how he needed to sleep! He had to find somewhere that he could be safe. Somewhere, anywhere, where he could sleep just a little…

The tile in the kitchen was cold and firm against his toes. There was a table, a pine wood table with chairs tucked around it. He pulled one chair out and crawled through the space left by it. Then he dragged it back. The legs of the chairs formed bars all around him. A cage. Somehow his exhausted mind took comfort from this, from the presence of slats keeping him in and the world out. Quivering with exhaustion he lay down, curling his limbs in toward his body. The hard surface below him was familiar, though cold and bitterly uncomfortable. At last, his weary mind released its anxieties and let him rest, and he drifted off into a slumber of utter enervation.


	27. Chapter TwentySix

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 

When Elsa awoke Al was already gone. She lay still for a minute, hoping to hear sounds from the kitchen that would mean he was fixing breakfast. Nothing. They had fought and now he had run off without a word. Men. They were much more trouble than they could ever be worth.

She got out of bed, pausing to refasten the ribbon meant to hold the front of her chemise closed. She didn't really know why she had put it on last night, when she had come up to bed spoiling for a fight. She had told herself at the time that she would wear it to torment Al. It was his favorite. He loved nothing quite the way that he loved to tug the ribbon and watch the garment fall away. When she didn't let him touch her, it would drive him crazy. It would be an excellent punishment for his thoughtless words to the press. Now, however, after waking up alone, it seemed that maybe she had decided to wear it because she hoped, even as she fumed with indignant rage, that when the fight was over he would want to make up. Her disappointment that he had shown no interest surprised her.

She went to the bureau mirror and pulled her brush through her hair, watching the way the waves of fire tamed themselves. It wasn't fair. All she wanted was a normal life, to go on living as she always had, but with Al to keep her company. Instead she found that a normal life was made impossible by the attention thrust upon her husband. It was dreadful, but true, that the press were _causing_ fights: certainly last night was their fault. It wouldn't have bothered her so much to find out that Al had been saying such things to Taggert or the other men. In all probability she would never have heard it in such a case. Even if it had come back to her through the NASA grapevine she could have laughed it off, but to see it in such a horrible gossip paper was unbearable. If only Al hadn't got himself dragged into this mess.

He wasn't even sorry that he had, either, and she could see why even if it didn't make her any happier to know it. With the attention he had been garnering over the last months if they didn't send him to the moon there was going to be huge outcry from the media. She didn't want to credit Al with such mercenary motives, but surely the thought had at least crossed his mind.

Elsa realized she was shivering and remembered that she had left the window open. She moved to close it, gazing out over the rain-soaked yard. She sighed, depressed by the grayness of the day. Yuckola.

She glanced at the clock and started to dress. Today would be a quiet day on the base, with all of the astronauts crashing at home after their week of stress testing. All of the astronauts but Al. God only knew where he had taken off to. It was a perfect day to overhaul the Command Module Simulator—something she had been meaning to do for the better part of a month.

At last, dressed, painted, bejeweled, and ready for work, Elsa descended into the main body of the house. She flicked on the light in the kitchen and closed the window over the sink, too. She opened the fridge, and stood for a minute staring at the contents, but nothing looked appealing. She had learned quite early on in the relationship that everyone was better off if Al didn't do the grocery shopping. Her natural tendency to rebel against such a stereotypically female chore had been quickly overridden by his propensity for coming home with the most bizarre and useless articles. Today, though, she could have done with a little spontaneity.

After considerable deliberation she took a couple of apples out of the crisper. She washed them and cut them into fine wedges, then put them into a bowl and sprinkled a thin layer of cinnamon and sugar over them. She draped herself over one of the stools by the counter and ate mechanically, lost in vague musings. When she was finished she rinsed her dishes and snatched her car keys out of the dish next to the sink. She grabbed too quickly, however, and they slipped through her fingers, landing with a musical jingling on the tiles.

Sighing a little, she bent to pick them up, then jumped back with a sharp gasp of alarm. There was a person under the table!

When the initial shock began to fade to a thunderous hammering in her chest, she knelt on the floor to take another cautious look. What she saw was at once bizarre, pitiful and utterly repulsive.

Al was lying on his side in the narrow space between the front legs of the six chairs, limbs curled tightly into the fetal position, his head resting at an odd angle on the hard floor. He was facing towards her, and she could see that he was fast asleep, his lips pale and his brow furrowed ever so slightly into a frown of discomfort. The scars marking his bare skin were made scarcely visible by the whiteness of his flesh, but one or two of the thickest marks seemed to burn her eyes. He was shivering subtly, but even that seemed insufficient to pierce through his weary slumber.

Elsa's astonishment quickly gave way to anger. So this was how he wanted to play, was it? They had fought, and instead of trying to apologize for his behavior he had decided to try psychological warfare. Well, two could play at that game! She got indignantly to her feet and yanked away the chair nearest his face.

He cringed, shrinking away. "N-no, please…" he stuttered, still not quite awake.

Elsa stamped her foot, the heel of her pump ringing very satisfyingly against the tile. Al gasped and jerked out of her line of vision. Then the chairs on the other side of the table shuddered as he made contact with a grunt of pain, and the whole table shook as he sat up and his head connected with its underside with sundering force. A harsh oath sounded out, followed quickly by silence.

"Come out of there!" Elsa commanded. There was no response. "Come out, Albert Calavicci!" she repeated.

Still, he made no reply. After a moment she knelt again.

He was sitting with his back against the far leg of the table, one knee drawn up to his chest and the other leg curled around the opposite foot. He clutched the raised leg with his left arm, scrubbing his face furiously with his right hand. His skin had gone a strange shade of gray and he seemed to be muttering to himself. Knowing what an actor he could be, Elsa wasn't fooled for a minute.

"You get out of there!" she said. "You make me sick!"

"Elsa…" he exhaled. "God damn it. God damn it."

"Out! What do you think you are doing down there like that?" she demanded. He wouldn't meet her eyes. He just kept rubbing at his face. "Stop it! _Calavicci_!"

At that last sharp exclamation Al looked up in alarm, and suddenly Elsa realized that his eyes were brimming with unshed tears and a strange despair. He was an actor, but he was not that good. Suddenly frightened for his well-being, she extended her hand into his unorthodox shelter.

"Al," she coaxed. "Al, come out of there."

He shook his head, hiding his eyes again. "I'm fine," he rasped.

"The heck you say!" she scoffed. "Now come here at once!"

He flinched at the note of command in her tone, but crept forward. She took hold of his arm and drew him up out of his hiding place and onto shaking legs. He stood with his shoulders stooped and his head down, like a child who had been caught in the midst of a profoundly shameful act. His arm was limp in her hand, devoid of all resistance. Elsa frowned. This wasn't like him at all.

"What are you doing?" she asked, her tone carefully neutral. If she had misjudged and this _was_ emotional blackmail from last night's fight, then she would be ready to spring into offensive mode. If something was really wrong…

Elsa released her grip on his wrist, and his arm fell limply to his side. He stood, lost in catatonia and unable or unwilling to meet her eyes.

If something was really wrong, she realized, she would have no idea what to do. Communal living was a skill, and after fourteen years alone she was woefully out of practice. As long as everything continued amicably she would have no difficulties, but if things started to take a turn for the worse Elsa didn't need a psychologist to tell her that she would be out of her depth.

She realized abruptly that Al had not replied. She frowned. "Albert Calavicci, answer me," she said firmly, taking a step forward. "What are you doing?"

As she moved towards him he withdrew with a faint gasp, skirting around the table as if she was a threat from which he could not escape. He stumbled a little as he stepped backwards, and caught himself on the table. The tablecloth buckled under his fingers. He glanced towards it in surprise, and then pulled it towards him, wrapping the rectangle of fabric around his shoulders and hugging it to his body. "Nothing," he said hoarsely.

"Yes, nothing, I'm sure," she said sarcastically. "Why were you sleeping under the table?"

He muttered something inaudible.

"What?" she prompted.

"I'm tired," he repeated.

"Hah! And what is wrong with the bed?" demanded Elsa. Her tone made Al flinch. That, too, was completely unlike him. Even at the height of his claustrophobia crisis he had been proud, defiant and angry. The timid, frightened affect that he was displaying now was new and disconcerting. "Or if you did not want to lie with me there is a guest room, and a sofa. Why underneath the kitchen table?"

He whispered something. Elsa frowned.

"Safe?" she repeated. He nodded, gripping himself more tightly and turning a little further away from her. She pursed her lips. This evasiveness was worse than his bizarre behavior. "What do you mean, _safe_?"

Al's eyes flickered up to her face for a moment, vulnerable and fearful. Then suddenly they hardened. "You wouldn't understand," he said huskily. Then he turned and walked unsteadily through the dining room into the living room.

Elsa followed, unwilling to let it go at that. Al was sitting on the edge of the sofa, still wrapped in the tablecloth and once again scouring his face with one hand. She sat down next to him and leaned forward into a posture of attentiveness.

"Al," she said, softening her voice so much that she found it sickeningly gentle. "Al, are you ill? Do you need a doctor?"

He shook his head. "Hell, no," he muttered. "I'm fine. I'm just tired. God, I'm so tired."

Timidly, unsure of his reaction, Elsa put her hand upon his shoulder. Al stiffened at the touch, and then abruptly he melted into it, curling towards her and letting his head fall onto her shoulder. She brought her other hand around to embrace him, easing him back against the cushions.

"Elsa, I'm tired," he said meekly. "Last night… last night I couldn't even sleep. I couldn't sleep." There was a faint note of panic in his voice as he repeated the last words.

"So you tried to sleep on the floor in the kitchen?" she asked, now completely confused.

"It felt… it felt right…" Al murmured helplessly. " 'M sorry…"

He was still shivering. Elsa held him tighter, rubbing his arm consolingly. "Maybe we should get you too bed, hey?" she asked. She had always wondered what the fallout from crisis training was like for the astronauts. She decided now that she really did not want to know. Elsa felt a pang of sympathy for Lauren Taggert, who was probably even now coping with similar nonsense from Jim.

"It felt right," Al repeated. His eyes were blinking sluggishly, and each time his lids lifted they had lost altitude.

"Okay, so it felt right," Elsa said. She bent over him to kiss his clammy forehead.

Abruptly he was grabbing at her head, trying to bring his lips up to his. She released her hold on his body and shifted into a less awkward position. They kissed, long and hard, and then Al started fumbling with the buttons on her blouse.

"Elsa, Elsa," he muttered. "Elsa."

His kisses grew more ravenous, and there was a definite need in his motions. Elsa would have loved to indulge him: after all, hadn't she been regretting the absence of a passionate apology less than half an hour ago? But she was going to be late. She took hold of each of his wrists, arresting the motion of his groping hands as she pushed his arms down into his lap.

"Not now, Al," she said firmly. "I need to go to work."

"But—" He looked up, eyes wide and desolate. Then he schooled his features back into impassive lines. "Sure, of course you do," he said flatly. "Go ahead, doll. Have a great day, huh?"

"I probably will: no astronauts to make trouble!" Elsa said, fixing her clothing and smoothing her hair. "You get some sleep," she said. "You're too tired."

"Damn, is that right," he said grimly, drawing his fingers along his brow. He looked down at his tablecloth-swathed body and frowned ruefully. "Maybe a shower first, though," he said.

"Yes, a shower," Elsa agreed. "Then sleep in a bed. You scared my life out of me!"

"The life," he corrected. Now he looked more like himself, though still gray-hued and abstractedly haunted. Elsa stood up, pausing to kiss him one more time. Then she returned to the kitchen, retrieved her purse from the counter, and left the house. She tried all the way to the Cape to make sense of what had happened, but she couldn't. Then she lost herself in the task at hand and did not think about Al again until she turned homeward at the end of the day.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

The savory aroma of Italian cooking greeted Elsa as she entered the house. She went straight through to the kitchen, where Al was putting the finishing touches on an uncommonly extravagant supper, singing to himself as he worked. When he saw her he crossed the room and kissed her quickly on the cheekbone.

"Hey, gorgeous!" he said. "How's things?"

"Fine… you made supper," she said. "That's nice."

"Always is! I'm one hell of a cook!" Al took a jaunty step towards the sink and shook out a strainer full of Romaine lettuce. "If you want to break out the wine, that'd be a big help!"

Elsa went to the fridge for the half-finished bottle of Chianti they had been nursing this month. As she did so she raked her eyes surreptitiously over Al. There was no sign of the disorder and confusion of this morning. His face was back to its normal color, and his expression and bearing were buoyant. She hesitated, not sure if she wanted to jeopardize this sunny mood by bringing up the strangeness that had started off their day. A startled thrill of self-beratement seized her. She had never been afraid to say what she was thinking, and she wouldn't start now!

"Are you going to tell me now why you spent last night under the kitchen table?" she asked.

Al shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea at the time!" he said brightly. "Though I gotta tell you, I'm not used to it. My neck's killing me."

Elsa thought dryly that he wasn't moving like a person whose neck was killing him, but she didn't want to grill him about his aches and pains. She was much more interested in getting inside that impossible brain.

"You said something about it being safe. How is it safe?"

"Well, if an earthquake hits I'll be protected!" Al said, his voice light and cheerful.

"Al, please, is there something wrong? Are you sick?"

He raised the back of his hand to his forehead. "I don't think I've got a temperature," he said. Then he sidled towards her, playing his fingers on each of her hips. "Of course, if you think I could use a little _intensive care_…"

She frowned. "A little what?"

His smile vanished. "Beth used to love that line," he muttered darkly, turning away.

Elsa felt a pang of remorse. "Oh, Al, I am not Beth," she said.

"Damned right."

Elsa stiffened. That wasn't what he was supposed to say! He was supposed to say that that was how he liked it, that he was glad that she was here and that he had married her, not that damned right she wasn't his first wife.

"Oh, well, if I'm not good enough—" she began heatedly.

"Dammit, Elsa, of course you're good enough!" Al snapped, spinning around and grabbing her shoulders. She tilted her head proudly, determined not to be won over this way. "God, you're beautiful," he said, lunging in and kissing her, almost violently.

She pulled away, thrusting out her chin. Sure she wanted to sleep with him, but she was not going to do it on these terms, as a surrogate for a woman who had not been a part of her husband's life for almost a decade. "The supper will get cold," she said, her voice hard.

His hand twitched and released her, his expression unreadable. "Sure," he said flatly, turning away. "Sure. The supper. Let's eat."

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

The crew of Apollo 20 was announced two weeks later. It was the most picture-perfect crew that NASA had ever put together. The LEM pilot was Jim Taggert, a handsome young Air Force officer with a pretty, rosy-cheeked wife very obviously pregnant with their first child. Then there was Clem Jacobs, the Command Module pilot, who had a photogenic, All-American family with an Eagle Scout son, an eight-year-old daughter who had placed first in her category at the Florida State science fair, and a five-year-old girl with the most adorable crop of golden curls and a propensity for spouting such gems of PR genius as "Daddy, Daddy, are you going to the _moo-oo-oo-oon_?" Last but certainly not least, there was Mission Commander Albert Calavicci, one-time prisoner of war and American hero, whose beautiful, redheaded bride was either a brilliant scientist and a computer expert, or an elite KGB agent, or just a real doll, depending who you asked.

At the impromptu reception thrown for the astronauts (and more importantly the press), everyone was too busy asking Lieutenant Commander Calavicci questions that ranged from the infinitely standard to the unreasonably personal to notice that he and his wife did not touch one another even once that whole evening.


	28. Chapter TwentySeven

Note: To see excerpts from Mike McGrath's book, Prisoner of War: Six Years in Hanoi (1975), visit my profile page for the URL. I can't get it to show up here. Sorry. 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

"I don't know, Cindy, I don't know," Elsa said, resting her cheek on the back of her hand. "It is not right."

The woman who had been her beautician and closest confidante since a newly diploma'd Elsa Orsós had come to Florida shrugged her shoulders and rasped the emery board over her client's thumbnail. "Well, baby, maybe that's 'cause it's wrong."

Elsa frowned, "But we are so much like each other. We are both so stubborn and proud; we are fighters. We both love best who we loved first—"

"Aw, _Elsie_! Ya _didn't _marry a guy who's in love with another chick!" Cindy exclaimed.

Elsa realized abruptly that she hadn't shared that detail with her friend, who had followed the Calavicci marriage from its earliest hints.

"Why not?" she asked. "I love another man."

"So Al's ex is dead too?" Cindy asked, as if that might not be so bad.

"No, she left him," Elsa said. "When he was in Vietnam."

"You know, kiddo, I've been thinking about that. Maybe he should see a shrink."

"He does," Elsa said, shifting on the tanning bed. "Two times every week he sees Doctor Mortmain for his claustrophobia. He is doing far better now. Even in the closet he doesn't panic any more."

"Gee, that's great, Elsie-honey, but maybe he needs therapy for other stuff. I mean, that time where he was sleeping naked under the kitchen table? That sounds like major shrink time to me." Cindy eased Elsa's hand into the bowl of gel resting on the manicure trolley.

"What, because he thinks he's a dog?" Elsa asked sarcastically.

"No, baby, because of the Hanoi Hilton," Cindy said, her voice suddenly hushing confidentially. "Elsie, you know what they say about the guys who got caught over there! Their minds ain't right. They got tortured so bad their brains have gone funny. And who could blame 'em?"

She wheeled herself down to the foot of the tanning bed, continuing her dissertation as she massaged peppermint lotion into Elsa's delicately boned feet.

"I got this book that some pilot who likes to draw made," she said. "I can lend it to you if you like. It's got pictures he drew from his memories of the camp, and they're just _awful_! I tell you, Else, the stuff they did to our boys! You know they'd put their legs in iron bars and leave 'em like that for weeks, and they wouldn't even take 'em off so the guy could change his shorts?"

Elsa looked up in surprise and disgust. There was an eager, almost voyeuristic gleam in Cindy's eyes, as if she was secretly relishing the thought that such horrors had been perpetrated on American soldiers.

"It was terrible for Al," she said coldly, surprising herself by springing to the defense of a man with whom it seemed she had scarcely spoken in weeks. "It was terrible, what happened over there. He is covered in scars and often has dreams because his mind hurts also. It is not the kind of thing that should be put in a book."

Cindy's face fell. "Aw, Elsie," she said; "I think it's important people know. The stories hafta get told. What about the guys who died over there? You want them to die forgotten 'cause nobody'll talk about it? Maybe if Al talked to the papers—"

"Hah! Those _keselyû_!" Elsa snorted. Time was only solidifying her hatred of the press. It added insult to injury that while she and Al roamed their big house like two silent storm clouds occupying the same stretch of sky by purest accident, every paper in the country was billing them as a perfect couple whose first child was just around the corner. "They wouldn't know truth if it danced in front of them wearing a silly hat!" she said.

Cindy laughed. "Girl, you're too much!" she said. "But seriously, honey, Al should get help for this stuff."

"I told him that, one night when he woke up screaming, and all he said was I should mind my own business," Elsa told her. "If he doesn't think he needs help, what more can I do? I just wish that we would spend more time together. I got married to have a companion, and it seems that we hardly even talk any more."

"How's the sex?" Cindy asked candidly. Like all of Elsa's close friends she was not afraid to speak her mind.

"It was great," Elsa confessed; "but it's stopped, too. He gets home and I am already asleep, or else he is too tired. He always wears pajamas to bed now, like he doesn't want me to touch him. He doesn't seem interested at all any longer."

"That's weird," Cindy mused. "You think he's got someone on the side?"

"No!" Elsa snapped. Then she paused. "I don't know. He tells me he stays out with the other astronauts…"

Cindy whistled. "Maybe he's still seeing his old girlfriend," she suggested.

"She was his wife. And she disappeared. Al has moved on, just like me," said Elsa.

"Oh, you've moved on, have you?" Cindy asked. She wheeled her sleek black chair back towards Elsa's head with two strong shoves of her arms, then put her hands on her hips. "Because I thought you were still in love with your fella Andy."

Elsa sighed despairingly. "I _am_!" she said. "I love him too much! But I have a new life now, and a husband. I want to move on."

"Some husband! You don't talk, you're not having sex, and you've only been married six months!" Cindy said.

"For a while I forgot Andrew," Elsa admitted, confessing her darkest secret. "But now… I miss him, Cindy. Why didn't he come home? Why did it have to happen?"

Cindy shrugged sympathetically. "Shit happens, Elsie-girl. And mosta the time it happens to the best people. You want my advice?"

"Yes!" Elsa exclaimed. "Yes, please, give me your advice!"

"Have it out with Al. None of this tiptoeing around each other. Have a big fight. Call him on everything and clear the air a little."

"Do you think that that will help?" Elsa asked.

"Sure!" Cindy said. "Ben and I had the same thing going on after Tamara was born. Only think that broke the silence was the fight!"

Elsa regarded her friend gravely. "Then there must be a fight," she said, falling back on her old formal delivery, for anything else seemed too mundane for the sentiment she wished to express. "For the silence I can bear no longer."

"Of course," Cindy mused; "inside of six months we were divorced!"

She laughed merrily, but Elsa did not. It seemed like a bad omen.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

"She doesn't seem interested anymore," Al sighed, pushing the indifferent-looking mystery casserole around his cafeteria plate. "I don't get it. Ever since just before Christmas she doesn't even wanna touch me, let alone—hadada-da-da." He gestured vaguely.

Jim Taggert frowned sympathetically. "From what I've heard most couples go through a patch like that. I know we did."

"You and Lauren?" Al asked, surprised at the notion. "But you're perfect together!"

"Yeah, but Lauren—she's not very happy with herself," Jim said. "It was maybe fifteen months ago, she was scared I didn't love her; though she wasn't beautiful enough—"

"Beautiful _enough_? She's gorgeous!"

Jim looked him in the eye. "I know," he said gravely. "But she wouldn't listen. Until one day _somebody_ told her that, so that the next time I said it she actually believed me."

"And then you were fine again?" Al asked. Easy for slender, willowy Elsa to say that married women didn't need a little flattery now and then.

Jim grinned enormously. "And now we're gonna have a kid! I'm gonna be a dad! Can you believe it, I'm going to be a dad!"

"You'll make a great dad," Al affirmed. "How much longer."

"Due in two weeks," Taggert said. "She's counting down the days, lemme tell you!"

"I'll bet," Al said, his voice trailing off as his mind floated back to his own domestic disaster.

Jim reached across the table to clap his commander on the arm. "Don't worry. Elsa'll come 'round."

"I'm not so sure," Al said. Yet again, for the thousandth time since that disastrous December morning, he thought that he couldn't blame Elsa for her sudden aversion to him. Who _would_ want to sleep with a man she'd seen doing something like that? Who _would_ be attracted to a skinny body covered in scars? Hell, he was lucky she hadn't banished him from the bedroom entirely.

"Sure she will!" Jim said. "You just got to have patience. Women. Can't live with 'em, can't kill 'em."

"Can't sleep with 'em," Al added.

Jim laughed. "Not if you want to stay out of the doghouse!" Then his face grew sincere again. "By the way, I hear congratulations are in order!"

Al flushed. He had hoped that news of his impending promotion wouldn't travel too quickly. He wasn't even sure why it was being granted. He hadn't done anything to warrant it, and he had only been a Lieutenant Commander for a year and a half, give or take. "It's nothing," he muttered.

"Oh, yeah, _nothing_!" Jim mocked. "It's great! I can't think of anybody who deserves it more than you!"

"I don't know," Al said. "I think they're just doing it so I have the authority to command Twenty."

"So take it! Jeepers, you're weird, Al. You need to lighten up a little sometimes. Either you're bouncing off the walls or you're beating on yourself."

"That's me," Al quipped. "NASA's original schizoid man!"

Jim was about to reply when a Marine skidded up to the table and saluted crisply.

"At ease, kid," Al said. The boy obeyed.

"Sir!" he acknowledged, and then turned to Jim. "Lieutenant Taggert, sir!" he said crisply. "We've received word that Mrs. Taggert has been admitted to the obstetrics ward of Florida Hospital in Orlando."

Jim went horribly white. "Hospital? Why?"

It was Al's turn to laugh. "Come on, Jimbo! Why do you think? You're gonna be a daddy!"

Jim shot him a look of pure terror. Al couldn't help another chuckle. He turned to the Marine. "Thanks, kid," he said. "Go and tell Mister Yardley that I'm taking Lieutenant Taggert up to the hospital, okay?"

"You don't have to do that…" Jim said numbly. His eyes were enormous and vacant. Al grinned and shook his head.

"The heck you say," he said. "You couldn't find the head right now. Come on, let's go!"

He dragged his friend to his feet and out of the building. Within minutes the sleek green Ferrari was streaking towards Orlando.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Elsa paced angrily. There would be a fight tonight, sure enough. He wasn't going to get away with this. Not likely. She had come home from her appointment with Cindy refreshed and newly tanned and ready to do battle. But the clock had struck six with no sign of her husband. At eight she had called the check-in desk at the Cape. He had signed out at two in the afternoon, leaving no word where he was going. By ten, she was beginning to wonder whether he had run off to join the circus. Now it was almost one-thirty and still there was no word from Al. Cindy's allegations ran through her mind. What if he _was _out with another woman? It could be. That would explain why he no longer wished to sleep with her.

She sat down in the living room, wrathfully plucking up the book that Cindy had lent her. She thumbed through the pages, taking in the stark ink drawings with little shivers of horror. One especially, a drawing of a man's arms marked by torture, burned itself into her mind, because it could have been Al. The scars were identical to the ones he bore. She put it aside and closed her eyes. Why did such thing happen? Why was there war?

There was a faint rattle as the back door opened. He was home! She sprung to her feet and strode to intercept him in the kitchen, where he was pouring himself a glass of whiskey.

"Where have you been?" she snapped. "I have been waiting for you now for seven hours—no, eight hours! _Where have you been_?"

"Why?" he asked. "Where do you think I was?"

"That's not an answer!" she shrieked. "What are you doing, sneaking into the house at two in the morning?"

"I'm not sneaking into the house!" he bit back.

"Oh, sure! Coming quietly into the back door, making no sound, creeping around with the lights off!"

"I thought you were in bed and I didn't want to wake you!" Al protested. He continued in annoyance;"And I came in the back door because I drive the Ferrari. We park the Ferrari in the garage. The garage is out back. If you want, I can walk all the way around the house like an idiot so I can come in the front door—"

"I don't care what door you use! I care where you have been all night! So where have you been all night?"

"Elsa, chill out," he said, taking a slug of his liquor.

"Put that away and answer my question, _elfajzott_!"

"You know, I would really love to know what that word means…"

"Hah! Wouldn't you just!"

"Yeah, I _would_ just!" he snapped.

Elsa tossed her head so that her heavy earrings swung against her neck in a very satisfying way. "So learn a little Hungarian, _bena hapsi_!"

"Ya know, two can play the language game…" Al said.

"So play it!" Elsa's pride began to falter. She was bickering like a little child. Well, he was no better, and _she _wasn't the one creeping into the house in the small hours of the morning.

He cheerfully let loose a string of words she didn't know, then suddenly she recognized one.

"Ah! Spanish!" she exclaimed. "That was Spanish! You said _perra_, you dirty male nozzle! Hah!"

Al frowned pensively. "How come you know Spanish?" he asked.

Elsa halted mid-bluster. She knew Spanish because Andrew had taught it to her. Not that word, that word she had learned from one of his friends, because Andrew would never have used that word, but he had taught her Spanish. And she had taught him Hungarian. And they had made sweet, passionate love to one another in the little cottage by the Sea…

"I learned it…" she faltered, failing under Al's keen, intelligent dark eyes. "I learned it from…from someone I used to know."

He smiled a little and slipped his hand around her waist. "Well, now you're done yelling," he murmured; "I was up at Florida Hospital with Jim Taggert. Lauren had her baby."

Elsa gasped in wonder. "She did? Boy or girl?"

"Boy," Al said smugly. "Handsome little boy, seven pounds four ounces. Looks just like his daddy."

"Yes?"

"Yeah. Bald and wrinkled and grumpy." He kissed her forehead.

"Oh, you are a terrible friend!" Elsa said, batting playfully at his chest.

"No, really?"

"What did they name him?" Elsa asked.

"Jeremy," Al answered. "Jeremy Ferdinand Taggert."

Elsa sighed dreamily. "What a delightful name."

"He's a delightful little guy!" Al enthused.

There was a silence as they leaned into one another, rocking a little and reflecting on this small happiness. Elsa realized that it was the first time they had embraced since the morning she had found Al under the kitchen table.

"Hey, Elsa," Al murmured presently, right in her ear; "do you want to have kids?"

"No!" she exclaimed. "No! Children are trouble! They tie you to the house, they make you a domestic slave, they—"

"Well, good!" said Al, hastily. "Good! I don't want kids either. I just wanted to make sure we're speaking the same language."

"Well, we are!" Elsa said, pulling away and nodding with conviction.

"Well, good!" he said.

As he turned back to his whiskey, Elsa realized with a pang of regret that there would be no lovemaking tonight, either.


	29. Chapter TwentyEight

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT 

The months passed in a flurry of activity. Al scarcely had time to think, so busy was he with training and team building and socializing. When duty requirements let them go early enough to do so the astronauts would get together for drinks or an evening at the ballpark or some night fishing. Wives were generally not included in these expeditions, but that was fine, because Elsa probably wouldn't have been interested anyway.

As both of their schedules accelerated in anticipation of December's launch, they saw less and less of each other. When he had leave, she was working. When she was off, he was on duty. On the rare occasions when they were home at the same time they were too distracted or too strained or too played out to engage in more than the rudiments of conversation. Al did not want to admit it, but his stamina was not what it once had been. He tired with embarrassing ease, and the more weary he became, the harder he had to focus to keep from lapsing into old patterns—and to save himself the humiliation of being caught in such regression. One night at a burger joint up the coast he had actually started rolling French fries into the cuff of his shirt. Clem Jacobs had caught him in the act and taken it at face value: Commander Calavicci clowning around again. Al, however, could not so easily forget the slip. Even now, ten weeks after the fact, his cheeks burned with a bewildered shame when he thought of it. He hadn't tried to hoard food since his eighth or ninth month Stateside.

Despite such incidents he was happier now than he could remember being in the better part of a decade. His work was fulfilling and fascination. He had a definite goal in view, and nothing could have been loftier. He was respected, valued and appreciated. Both his boys and the support crew were daily becoming more like real buddies and less like hostile competitors. The press still hounded him with unreasonable questions about his years of captivity and ridiculous allegations about Elsa's political allegiance, but Yardley was always ready to palm him a fresh battery of rebuttals when needed.

September rolled around, and NASA began to step up the pre-mission publicity. For the first time since Apollo 12 there was actually a market for it. The astronauts started coming out more often for press conferences and radio spots. Al made appearances on each major television network, explaining the mechanics of space flight in oversimplified layman's terms. Whenever possible the men ant their families were cast in the most appealing light possible. Newly six-year-old Daphne Jacobs was billed in papers across the country as the Shirley Temple of the space program, and precocious little Jeremy Taggert was well on his way to becoming the most photographed baby in America.

What was weird was that although candids of the kids with their fathers abounded, the staged photo shoots always featured Al. A picture of the mission commander in a white flight suit, sitting meekly as Daphne, clad in a miniature lab coat and a stethoscope, pressed a depressor paddle to his tongue and peered critically down his throat graced the cover of Life. Not to be outdone, Time ran a genuinely muckraking account of Al's ignominious childhood the very next week. The cover shot came from a spacesuit session, and showed Commander Calavicci with his helmet in one arm, and a laughing Jeremy in the other. If this bothered Jim and Clem, they gave no sign of it.

The one star in the sky that was off-kilter was his sex life. It was still nonexistent. He and Elsa might as well have been strangers for all the affection that passed between them. This was getting to be a burden. Though he tried to control it, the lack of passion was making Al testy as hell. There were men out there cut out for celibacy, but Albert Calavicci just wasn't one of them.

Not that he would cheat on her. That just wasn't nice. But it was harder not to look at other women when you weren't getting any at home.

Nevertheless, though he might not be sleeping with her, he had to get her something stellar for their first anniversary. So it was that he was zipping along the freeway into Orlando, bound for her favorite gaudy jeweller's to buy her a ruby necklace.

It was the last thing he wanted to be doing right now. The day had been a long, difficult one spent in the LEMS—which in spite of a year of therapy that was delivering what it promised on most fronts was still ineffably constrictive. Al had spent most of his time keeping Jim on track and compensating for the lieutenant's exhausted errors. Jeremy had colic, and his parents hadn't slept for a week. Now Al was taxed, tired and sore, stiff from fighting the harness to flip switches on Jim's side of the module. All he wanted to do was head back to the house for a hot bath and fall into bed, but today was his wedding anniversary, and he couldn't return home without a gift and flowers for his tanned, taloned and painted wife.

He was lost in such thoughts, and so did not see the car trying to merge without a shoulder-check. There was a shudder that shook the Ferrari, and a sound of metal grating on metal as the sides of the two vehicles grated against one another. Al tensed, making a conscious effort not to swerve into the lane to his left as the old brown station wagon fell back behind him. Anger welling up into his throat, he pulled over onto the shoulder and watched in his rear-view mirror as the offending vehicle did the same thing. The driver bent over the wheel, her face in her hands and her blonde hair spilling in every direction.

Al rolled his eyes. God damn it.

He got out of the car, taking a deep breath and trying to quell the urge to ball the stupid woman out. He rounded the corner to check out the damage. Thick scratches ran the length of his bodywork, there was a deep dent in the front fender, and the mirror was flattened against the window, its glass shattered.

He approached the other vehicle. The door opened, and the woman got out. She was trembling so violently that he could actually see her knees quivering in their grubby blue jeans. She was swimming in a grease-stained sweatshirt that she scrubbed at anxiously.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" she wailed, closing the door and clutching at her mouth.

"What the hell—" Al froze as she raised frightened, tearful eyes to meet his. "Ana Fefner?" he gasped.

"O-o-o-o-oh!" she wailed. Then suddenly he had his arms around her and she was sobbing on his shoulder, clutching the front of his uniform. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

He patted her back consolingly. "It's okay, it's just a scratch. Are you all right?"

She glanced at the scraped and dented side of her vehicle and started to cry again. Al rocked her back and forth, until abruptly he realized that there were three pale, frightened little faces staring at him through the windows of the station wagon.

"Your kids?" he asked. Ana whirled in his arms and stared at them. She nodded frantically, and Al drew her back, smoothing her matted hair away from her bruised face.

Her bruised face?

"Ana? Are you okay?" he asked, and now he didn't mean had she been hurt in the collision.

She shook her head. "I don't know what to do!" she sobbed. "I've got nowhere to go—oh, what am I going to do? My poor kids…"

Al opened the driver's door and eased Ana down onto the seat, crouching in front of her to get a better look at the ugly purple marks. It looked like someone had punched her, once in the jaw and once on the cheekbone. He brushed away her tears with his thumb as a van thundered past behind him.

"Ana, who hit you?" he asked, stroking one bruise.

She sobbed a little.

"Wayne did!" a little voice piped up. A boy of perhaps four years poked his head between the front headrests. "Wayne hit Mommy!"

"Shh, Elmer, be quiet!" the little girl scolded. She was seven or eight, and her clothes looked rumpled and slept-in.

"But he did! He did!" the little boy protested. "Are you a police-man? Are you going to take him away to jail?"

"Quiet, Elmer!" the girl gasped. "Don't talk to strangers!"

"H-he's not a stranger, Pauline," Ana said, daubing at her eyes. "This is Mr. Calavicci. He grew up in the same place Mommy did."

"Ana, just tell me what you need," Al said. "Should I take you to the hospital?"

"No… no, I'm okay… I'm…" She sobbed again.

"Where were you headed?" Al asked.

"Peer!" Elmer said. "We're gonna go to Peer to see Mommy's friend. Maybe Mommy's friend will let us stay with her, because the Sheriff took away our house and Wayne's mean. Wayne hit Mommy, and he hit Paulie, too!"

Al noticed abruptly that the little girl had a dreadfully swollen black eye. Ana's tears redoubled.

"D-don't cry, Mommy," the other boy begged. He must have been about six, and his face was streaked with grime and tears.

Al stroked Ana's unwashed hair. "Honey, come on, now. What can I do to help?"

"Nobody can help!" Ana sobbed, as if he was offering her a long-craved outlet for her hopelessness and anxieties. "I've got no money, no job, nowhere to go, now my car… my car… oh, what am I going to do?"

Giving up on trying to get information from her, Al hugged her tightly and turned towards the kids. "Elmer, I want to help out," he said. "Don't you have a place to stay?"

"We stayed with Wayne," Elmer said. "After the Sheriff took our house. But Wayne's mean, so we left!"

"I want to go home!" the other boy sobbed. "I want my room! I want my toys! I want my tire swing!"

"Quiet, Ian," Pauline scolded. "Be quiet. You'll make Mommy cry."

Ian's tears redoubled. "Don't cry, Mommy! Don't cry!"

Al held Ana tighter, even as Pauline started trying to comfort her brother. They couldn't do this here, on the side of the road. He cleared his throat and spoke, calmly and levelly and as confidently as he could.

"Ana, I'll take care of everything," he said. "What we'll do is head up to a hotel. I'll get a room and we'll get some supper in these kids, and you can tell me everything. Okay?"

She looked up, her tears abating a little. "Really?"

"Really," he promised. "Don't worry, honey. Everything will be okay."

She tried a feeble smile. Al petted her cheek. "Now, I don't think the car is too badly banged up," he said. "You just stay close and follow me. Don't worry, darling. Al the Pick will take care of you now."

She laughed a little, as he had hoped she would. "You're a good man, Al," she said.

"Hell, it's no more than any officer would do," Al said dismissively. "Just follow me. Hey, kids? What do you say we find a nice motel and order some pizza?"

"Pizza! Pizza!" Elmer said, clapping his hands. Ian's expression brightened marginally, and even Pauline seemed a little happier. Ana swung her feet into the vehicle and started the engine.

Al returned to the Ferrari. As he looked back before climbing in he reflected that this must be a cursed stretch of road. Just before the merge a tourist in Bermuda shorts, carrying a Nikon camera on a strap around his neck, was also parked on the shoulder, leaning against the open hood of his midnight blue Mustang.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Al found an out-of-the-way motel with no problem. It was a decent place on the edge of a residential area, and soon the kids were piling into the largest suite. Ana took a battered carpetbag out of the trunk, and Al picked up a stained pillowcase full of clothes.

"Is this all?" he asked softly.

"We… we left in a hurry," Ana said.

Al nodded gravely and closed the hatch of the station wagon. Then they headed to the door together. On the threshold they paused.

"Oh, Al, thank God I hit you… I mean… I…" Ana flushed a brilliant red, and her tears brimmed up again.

Al grinned and took hold of her head, kissing her brow. "Thank God you did," he agreed. "Thank God you did." He pecked her cheek just to the left of her pallid lips and ushered her into the room.

After the kids were bathed and fed and curled up together in one of the two double beds, Ana and Al sat down at the table in the kitchenette, and slowly the whole sordid story poured out. It had been one hell of a bad year.

It wasn't easy to make ends meet on a driver examiner's salary, especially after Isabella's stroke, when Ana had had to start paying for childcare. Then Ian's appendix had got infected, and the operation was so expensive, and Tim wasn't paying the alimony, and she didn't have any money to hire a lawyer to go after him. Then there had been cuts to the DMV budget and she'd lost her job. Slowly she had sunk further and further into debt until she couldn't even pay the rent on the house, and they'd been evicted. She had nowhere to go, so she'd moved in with her new boyfriend. It had seemed like the perfect arrangement. He was romantic and considerate, and he had lots of money.

As soon as she'd moved in she had found out she was wrong. Wayne was only interested in the convenience of having a live-in maid, he was an angry, abusive man, and he hated the kids. But she had no money, no family, and no one to help her, so she had to stay. Wayne also had a problem with coke, and when he was high he was really dangerous. Then last night he'd hit Pauline, and finally Ana had decided she had to get away.

"So where are you going?" Al asked. "Elmer said… Peer?"

"Pierre," Ana said, with a tiny smile. "You know, the capital of South Dakota? Remember that day you came in for your license?"

"Yeah," Al said softly. Thank God for that day, or he wouldn't have recognized her out on the freeway, and they would have just gone their separate ways.

"Remember Josie?"

"A real tart," Al said, then caught himself and grinned sheepishly. "Sorry."

"She's a great woman," Ana said. "She moved up there last year… I phoned her and she said that me and the kids… that we could stay with her… so that's where we're going."

Al petted her cheek. "You're going to drive to South Dakota in that old wagon? With three little kids and no money?" he asked.

Ana's lip trembled again as she nodded. "I have no choice," she said. "It'll be good to have a fresh start…" She wiped her eyes frantically. "I… I'd like to go and have a bath," she said.

"You go ahead," Al said. "I'll watch the kids."

"You're awfully good to me, Al," she said. "Why are you doing this?"

He shrugged. "Us kids from the neighborhood, we've got to watch out for one another, don't we?"

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

It didn't take Ana long to fall asleep after she finally got into bed with her children. Al sat in the darkness and thought very hard about the whole thing. At last he made up his mind what had to be done.

Ana couldn't drive all the way across the country like this. She would just have to sell the wagon and fly out. He'd buy it. Ten thousand ought to be plenty to help her start fresh. She wouldn't want to take the money: no one was prouder than kids who had grown up on charity. He knew _he'd_ rather die than take help like that, but if he phrased it as an offer for the vehicle… he could bullshit about him and Elsa wanting to have kids and needing a family car. She couldn't turn that down. God knew she needed money. Yeah, he'd offer her ten thousand for the wagon. Then he'd take 'em to the airport and get them tickets to Pierre. Once they were out there the hard part was over. Ana was confident that Josie would help her, and somebody also had to get on her deadbeat husband and make him do his duty to his kids. A lawyer who would treat Ana right, not take advantage of her or charge her an arm and a leg, but one with enough clout to get things moving.

A lawyer who was actually a decent human being, and knew what it was like to have kids to look out for. A lawyer who lived in South Dakota…

The Information operator wasn't terribly helpful, but in the end the Calavicci charm prevailed and the phone on the other end rang.

A drowsy female voice answered. "Hello? Simon residence…"

Al's throat seized up inexplicably. That voice… "Can I talk to Dirk, please?" he asked hoarsely.

"Sure, hang on."

Al frowned. There was _something_ about that voice… but then Dirk Simon came on the line and the eerie crawling on the back of Al's neck vanished along with the strange twisting in his intestines as he turned back to the problem at hand.

He explained, and Dirk listened with incredible patience for a man who had been woken up at one in the morning. At last Al got around to the request.

"Sure, no problem," Dirk said, yawning involuntarily. "I'll get the bastard, I promise. Just tell her to get in touch with me when she gets into town. Don't worry about money, I—"

"I'll pay," Al said. "I'll give you my number and you can call when you've worked out a fair fee—"

"I don't want your number!" Dirk said, rather abruptly. Then his voice levelled out. "I don't need money. It won't kill me to help her out _pro bono_. The guy's obviously in the wrong. These sorts of things—_no_, honey, _no_. It's nobody you know. Just a client I met in D.C.—are pretty cut and dry."

They worked out a couple more details, before Al was satisfied that Ana would be amply provided for. Then he thanked the lawyer profusely and apologized for the unorthodox call and the inhuman hour. Dirk reiterated that he was only too happy to do it.

After that he went outside for a cigar, roaming the motel parking lot and admiring the sleek lines of a gorgeous midnight blue Mustang parked two doors down. Satisfied with a good night's work, he went back inside and lay down on the other bed. He was soon asleep.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Ana protested at first, but Al didn't budge an inch. The sorry truth was that as proud and self-sufficient as she wanted to be, she couldn't turn down the help because of the kids. She wouldn't take any more than five thousand, though, no matter how much Al argued. The ride to the airport and the tickets to Pierre she accepted gratefully, weeping and repeating over and over again that Al was an angel in disguise. The heck he was. He was just a completely unremarkable human being, and he wasn't going to let an old compatriot and her kids starve in the streets or fall prey to an abusive druggy.

After seeing Ana and the kids through security, Al drove the station wagon to a second-hand dealer, where he unloaded it for two hundred and fifty bucks. Then he caught a cab back to the motel to pick up the Ferrari, which was going to need some very intensive bodywork. He could have taken care of that right away, too, but he was unreasonably tired, and wanted to go home.

Home. Oh, damn it. God damn it. _Elsa._


	30. Chapter TwentyNine

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE 

Elsa could not feel anything anymore. At first, last night, she had been furious with Al's tardiness. Then after she had called and found out he had left hours ago, she had gone through a period of worry. Maybe he'd got into an accident or worse… Then as the night dragged sleeplessly on rage had returned. Rage and doubt. Was he with another woman? What other explanation could there be? He didn't want to sleep with her, but he would sleep with another woman? It was disgusting! Infuriating!

She had stormed around the house, ranting to herself, sobbing, snarling. Then she had settled in the living room just before dawn, with her hand-carved box on her lap and the book that somehow she had never got around to returning to Cindy in her hand. She read it again, for the dozenth time, staring at the horrific pictures, and trying to imagine her impeccably groomed, beautifully dressed, fastidious husband existing under such conditions. She tried to see him in the half-naked men drawing water from a polluted well; or the pain-twisted wretch held down by a guard giving him a dry shave with a dull razor; or the defeated shadow bound cruelly with coarse ropes, being pushed and bent into impossible positions. She couldn't. She just couldn't imagine it. Al, who was so particular about food, eating cold, weevil-infested rice and flavorless cabbage soup? Al, who kept a cleaner house than _she_ did, emptying a brimming slop bucket into an open lagoon. Al, covered in lice and plagued by mosquitoes and tormented by rats. It didn't seem possible.

Of course, when she tried to imagine Andrew charred and blackened, she couldn't do that either. She couldn't see him without skin, his muscles exposed and blistered, his beautiful dark hair gone. She couldn't picture him with an I.V. running morphine into his ravaged bloodstream, another with every antibiotic under the sun, a nurse massaging silver sulfadiazine cream into his burns as he tried so bravely to keep smiling… That didn't seem possible, either.

She set aside the book and opened the box. She hadn't really taken it out for months, much less touched the silver snake inside. It was cool and smooth in her hand, and made its familiar sound as she lifted it. The tears that had been burning in her eyes began to fall. Finally she gave into her exhaustion and fell asleep on the sofa.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMW_MWMWMW

Rodney returned from the one-hour photo lab in triumph. He stood by while Myrtle Wetherspoon examined yesterday's handiwork. There were some really excellent shots, especially the one of the two of them embracing next to the station wagon. The woman had put on fresh clothes for the new day—clothes that actually almost fit, and showed off her trim figure very well.

She'd tailed him with the intention of cranking out a story about how a national hero treats his wife on their first anniversary. She had expected the usual candy-and-flowers routine, with maybe a little gossip about where he took her for supper, what they ordered, and whether they were into feeding each other or linking arms as they sipped their champagne. Sunday supplement stuff.

Instead, she had _this_. It was a genuine scandal. Of course, she wasn't stupid. She'd seen the bruises on the woman's face and the three pallid little kids in the back of the station wagon, but the truth wasn't important. What was important was how it looked and what the public would want to believe. The only thing that sold papers faster than torture was sex, and with these shots it wouldn't be hard to leap to a conclusion like that.

Luck and the gods of journalism had been smiling on her. Whoever had beat up the woman was a southpaw, and all the profile shots showed the left side of her face; the side without bruises. She was tall and blonde and at least twenty, probably closer to twenty-five years younger than Calavicci. In those grubby clothes you could make a case for her being his longtime mistress from the slums, so comfortable in her position that she didn't need to look presentable, or the very worst kind of discount hooker.

The Sun-Times, naturally, would never print it. No respectable paper would, but she could make a mint flogging these photos to the supermarket tabloids.

The money, however, wasn't the best part. She had been in the business long enough to know that the money didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was the glory. She could have had that in abundance, if Calavicci had just cooperated and given her the story she'd asked for, whatever it was. There was a real scoop there, starting right after the V.C. had taken him out of that camp named after a rabbit. You didn't have to be a basset hound to smell Pulitzer material, but he'd had to go and play hard-to-get.

It wouldn't have been a problem, but in order to get the tickets to Washington she had had to promise her editor a major scoop. She had bragged how she could get the whole story, no problem. She was still paying for that failure: he hadn't trusted her with a hard-hitting scoop since then.

Even if Calavicci never knew who got him, though, she was finally going to get some revenge.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM

The sound of a key in the front door woke Elsa with a start. She hastened to return her treasure, her last reminder of Andrew, into the box, which she slid under the sofa. Then she got to her feet and hastened to the front hallway. 

Al's face melted into contrition when he saw her. "Elsa, God—" he began.

"Where have you been?" she asked coldly. "Out all night, where have you been?"

"I…" He closed the door and bolted it. "I had an accident."

"What kind of an accident?" she asked, her need to be stern suddenly melting into a fear that he had been hurt.

"Nothing major: car merging without watching grazed the side of the Ferrari," Al said. "It's just a scratch…"

Just a scratch? But then why had he been out last night?

"The driver… it was a kid from the orphanage. In trouble…" he mumbled, scrubbing at his shadowed eyes as if he was struggling to stay awake. "Had to help, Elsa. We spent the night at a little motel… put Fefner on the plane to Pierre… God, I'm sorry, honey…"

She backed away as he stumbled wearily towards her, hands outstretched in supplication. Then she realized something. Either she could cling to her stupid suspicions that he had betrayed her on the one year marking of their wedding night, or she could believe what he said about helping an old friend. Of course, if he had met such a friend he had to help him. He had no other brothers to look after. She understood that he had to show loyalty to those he had grown up with.

And she was tired. Too tired to fight. Her heart was so sore, worn down by the horrific imaginings of Al's life in Vietnam and the still more debilitating thoughts of what had happened to Andrew, while she was on the other side of the country and could not help him hold on… and it had been so _long _since they had last made love...

"Then show me, Al," she murmured, wrapping her arms around his neck and feeling for his lips with her own. "Show me how you are sorry."

"Elsa, Elsa…" he mumbled. Then he was tugging at the zipper of the dress she had now been wearing for thirty-seven hours. "Elsa, Elsa, Elsa, Elsa…"

She was busy fumbling with the buttons on his uniform shirt, and so could not quite make out what he said after that, so softly that she didn't believe that he meant her to hear it at all.

Still, she though it sounded oddly like; "Not Beth."

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Al was in a great mood. All week, he and Elsa had been absolutely inseparable. She had unquestioningly accepted his rather disjointed explanation of why he had been out all night and missed their anniversary entirely. Not a harsh word had passed between them. Best of all, they were sleeping together again. it was almost like the honeymoon they had had to forgo because of training.

He had had a call from Ana Fefner, who had safely arrived in South Dakota, and was settled in with her friend. Everything was fine. At least, everything seemed fine, though probably she would never admit if it wasn't. Al knew how that went. He was the same way. Probably every kid who had had to grow up without parents or family or even affection was like that.

He had wanted to call Dirk Simon to check up on how things were going on the alimony front, but something was holding him back. He got a creepy, crawly, scary feeling every time he even thought about it. There had been something about that midnight phone call that had placed a seed of discontent in his soul, and he decided that he would never contact the man again, not if he could help it. It wasn't right. Somehow, it just wasn't right.

What was right, however, was Elsa! God, what a woman! What a woman!

He brushed his hand over the side of the newly repaired Ferrari. You couldn't even tell the thing had been through the wringer.

Leaving the garage, he strode through the handsome yard towards the house. It was a beautiful day! He had a happy marriage! And in less than three months, he would be on the moon! It seemed too good to be true.

It _was_ too good to be true.

She was waiting in the kitchen with a face that wouldn't have looked out of place on a murderer moving in for the kill.

"You _elfajzott_!" she spat. "_Elfajzott! Tépõfarkas! Házasságtörõ férfi!_"

Al frowned in confusion. "What?" he said.

Her eyes flashing with rage, she snatched up a newspaper from the counter and hurled it at him. It exploded in mid-air, scattering pages in every direction. The front page floated to earth, face-up, and what he saw turned his blood cold.

It was a grainy photograph of him and Ana Fefner, a close-up of their faces as he kissed her. It was the moment when he had pecked her lightly to the side of her mouth, but the angle of the picture made it look like they were locked in a very passionate osculation. The inch-high red letters smeared across their shoulders read _Astronaut's Mystery Girl—What Will Comrade Calavicci Say?_

"What is this?" Elsa demanded. "You lie to me, tell me stories about old friends, and now I see in a paper what you've been doing? You… you…"

She launched into a string of Hungarian oaths. Al stared at the photo again, too stunned to do anything at the moment.

"Why do you lie?" she cried. "You think I care if you have other women, you slime, you nozzle? You think I care if an _elfajzott_ like you sleeps in the gutter with filth like himself? You lie to me to hide it, and then you sleep with me?"

"Elsa, I didn't lie…" Al stammered. "That's Ana Fefner. She was at the orphanage the same time I was, and—"

"Liar!" she roared. "You lie! You lie! Do you think I do not have eyes? She is too young to be anyone who was at school with you—you filth! _Házasságtörõ férfi! Házasságtörõ férfi!_"

Damn it, she wasn't going to listen… he had to try anyway.

"You don't get it!" he said. "She fell in with a drug addict who was beating on her and the kids. She hit my car 'cause she wasn't watching the road, and I took her to a motel—"

"Hah! And you slept with her, pretty blonde American slut! You filthy slime! I hate you! I will kill you! I will kill you!"

He was losing his temper. "Damn it, Elsa, will you just listen?"

With a ululation of rage, she snatched up the glass carafe from the coffee pot and hurled it at him. He ducked, and it shattered against the back door. He took a step towards her.

"I didn't put a finger on her," he said. "I bought some pizza for her kids, and—"

"It's not your finger that I worry about!" Elsa snapped. "_Elfajzott_! Male chauvinist pig! Adulterer!"

"Now, _that's _ not fair!" Al snarled. "I never cheated on you—not that you didn't deserve it! For months you wouldn't even touch me!"

"Not touch you, hah! I should never have touched you! You dirty, rotten, worthless filth! You scum! You bastard!" The Hungarian took over again, and the words grew harsher and uglier, polysyllabic and violent enough to leave little to the imagination despite his very rudimentary grasp of the tongue. The rest of the coffee maker followed its pot, and Al skirted around the table, trying to get some kind of barrier between himself and the eruption of unfettered fury that was embodied in this red-haired Harpy.

"Damn you, I didn't sleep with her! I gave her some money and made sure that—"

"Money! Sure! I bet you gave her money! Don't you always give your whores money, you lying creep! You dirty nozzle! May the devil use you as his mouthpiece, you worthless, spineless dog!" Elsa snarled. "How many women have you taken to bed since we married? All those nights you say you were out with Taggert and Jacobs and the rest—finding cheap girls and betraying the wedding vows—I should cut off your _heres _and cook them in lemon and onions, you—you—"

She snatched up the electric frying pan and hurled it with such force that it dented the wall. Al's heart pounded with genuine fear. She could have taken his head off with that thing!

"For crying out loud, Elsa, why don't you believe me?" he demanded. "Have I ever lied to you?"

"Yes!" she shrieked. "You wake up screaming, you say you are fine! I ask, how was it for you across the sea, you say not so bad! I ask if they hurt you, you tell me no! All you do is lie! You do not tell me the truth about that, why would you tell me who you sleep with? Why would you be honest when you know what I will do? Hah! But now the world knows! They know you have slept with this _szutykos nõ_, and still you tell stories! I hate you, you _házasságtörõ férfi! _Like a man—like all men! All stupid American men!"

The next tirade went on for so long that at last Al realized she wasn't going to switch back to English at all. It was time for Calavicci to stop protesting his innocence to a crowd not interest in hearing it, and to make his exit. Then suddenly instinct threw him to his hands and knees as the toaster flew across the room.

That was too much. No longer willing to stay here and argue with this closed-minded Fury, risking his life for a marriage that was obviously over, Al scrambled to his feet and fled. There was a lock on the door of his den, and he shut himself in with his liquor cabinet and his black thoughts.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

The moment Al was gone Elsa sank to her knees with a panicked sob. She wanted to believe him, she did, but it couldn't be true. The girl was too young, far, far too young to be anyone who had grown up in the orphanage with her husband. No, he had betrayed her. Cindy was right. He was sleeping with other women. He was nothing but a _házasságtörõ férfi, _a philanderer, an adulterer. It was over. She would not stay with him anymore. She would not. She would divorce him. She would destroy him. He had deceived her and betrayed her, and the worst of it was that this loss of the trust she had placed in Al was worse than any loss she had ever known…

_Any_ loss. That was worst of all.


	31. Chapter Thirty

Note: Thank you to a random translator service whose (hopefully not-so-random) translation I used, my Italian correspondent being incommunicado somewhere in Greece (lucky dog). I forgot to note the URL. Silly me.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Al paced the corridor, staring with unseeing eyes at the portraits of past presidents that lined the walls. His dress whites were unusually constrictive around his neck tonight, and he really wanted to strip down, but he didn't have the nerve. Behind that door… behind that door Elsa was getting ready for bed.

This hadn't been their idea. They had both been pushed into it. Threatened, essentially. Al had been threatened, anyway.

On the whole it hadn't been so bad. The tour of the White House this morning, a couple of cutesy photo-ops in the afternoon. The secret service guys had kept back the press, and the President's aides had been there to field questions. Then dinner. Gerald—somehow it was hard to stay on formal terms with a man who knocked his consommé into your lap and then insisted on accompanying you upstairs so you could change your soiled uniform and he could personally deliver it over to the staff for laundering, apologizing profusely the whole time—was a great guy. Elsa and Mrs. Ford had hit it off famously, talking emphatically about women's rights and other mutually favorite topics. There had been no reporters, unless you counted Ford's son, John, and the only photographer present was the President's daughter, Susan, who had snapped a very cheesy picture of Al and her father each taking one half of the carving set to the abnormally picturesque turkey.

The problem was that the Calaviccis, whom NASA wanted everybody to believe were still the perfect couple, had only been given one bedroom, and if there was one thing Al really didn't want to do it was share a bed with Elsa.

Their marriage was a sham now, a pantomime being played out in infinitesimal detail to the blueprint drawn out by John Yardley. Two days after the fight that had landed Al on the sofa in Jim Taggert's living room, the Commander had been called into the Associate Administrator's office.

"You want to explain this, mister?" Yardley had snapped, slapping down a sheaf of tabloids upon his desk.

"It's a filthy lie, sir," Al said woodenly.

"I know it's a filthy lie, Calavicci. What I want to know is what the hell you were thinking when you put yourself in a position where the press could crank out garbage like this!"

Al's eyes hardened. He had an ally in Yardley, or at least he had thought that he did, and now the man was deliberately raking him over the coals, looking angrier than Al had ever seen him and plenty mad enough to kill. "With all due respect, sir," he said; "I hardly think the National Enquirer and the Weekly World News count as press!"

"Oh, you hardly think, do you?" Yardley snapped. "What if I told you that the New York Times wanted to run these pictures?"

That disarmed Al completely. "_What_?"

"You heard me. Seems they were taken by a very respected team from one of the big papers in Chicago—we don't know who, but that's the word on the grapevine. Public Relations worked very hard to veto the publication of these snaps by any paper of any importance, and it cost a lot of time, effort and money, Calavicci."

Something wasn't adding up. Al's eyes narrowed. "Why did they do that?" he asked.

Yardley had stared at him for a long minute before answering that one. "Calavicci, this may not have occurred to you, but NASA has a hell of a lot riding on this last moon mission. A lot of people have sunk their reputations into this thing, and you, mister, are the figurehead. Up until now you've performed admirably, but this just about cost us everything. Now, I understand what you were doing, and I admire it, but although private citizens might be free to get into compromising situations like this, public figures aren't. You could have ruined everything, if we hadn't had such a reliable contact at the Times. Do it again, and you're out."

Al's brain was working overtime. There was something up. He had felt it for a long time, but had written it off as paranoia and self-deprecation. He'd been wrong. There really was something strange going on here. "Sir, what do you mean, 'performed'?" he had asked. Then Yardley erupted.

"For crying out loud, Calavicci, isn't it obvious? We've been grooming you for this mission for ages. I told you at our first meeting that everyone wanted you in space, from Congress to Admiral Holloway." Yardley had paced the length of his office wrathfully. "We've been giving you little nudges, a leg up here, a lowered bar there, so that you could make it to the moon, and you've been repaying us in good publicity. There's a public out there waiting with baited breath for you to take those steps up there, and we're not going to let you toss it away with stupid mistakes!"

"Hey, hang on!" Al had snapped. "You didn't nudge me anywhere! I've been pulling my weight, and I've earned my place the same as anybody!"

"Sure, you've worked," Yardley allowed irately. Something had snapped and he no longer seemed to be in control of his tongue. "But haven't you ever wondered how you got accepted to the program in the first place? Let's face it, you're a wreck _now_, and you were worse then! Twenty pounds below the healthy weight range, forty under minimum poundage here. Lungs full of wasted muscles, more scar tissue than skin, weak ankles, compromised shoulders, a screwed-up digestive tract—and that's just your _body_, Calavicci! Your mind's worse: claustrophobia, uncontrollable fits of temper, regression into savagery in the cafeteria. You were neither physically nor mentally adequate for the program. We had to tweak your reports so many times that they read like a fantasy novel!"

Al had stared, not quite believing what he was hearing. "You fudged my physicals?" he had asked, his voice low and incredulous.

"Hell, yes, we fudged your physicals! Hollway himself shut down Carpenter's _non compos mentis_ recommendation! Every damned bureaucrat in our organization and yours has been trying to get you to the moon since you opened your repatriated mouth and gave them the idea! My life for the last two goddamned years has been getting you onto that hunk of space rock up there, and I'm not going to watch you chuck that all away by playing estranged lover with your wife!" Yardley had cried.

Then he made himself very, very clear. Move back in with Elsa as if none of this had ever happened, or NASA would drop him like a hot potato and replace him with Simmons.

At first Al had been sickened and humiliated by the revelation that he had been set up like that. _Groomed_ was the word Yardley had used. Al called it being played like a piano. How could he have been so trusting? So naïve and stupid. They had paved the way for him so that he could be their trained monkey, their little actor, putting on a show for the masses. The cute, cuddly wop mascot of the Apollo program.

Then he had come to look at it another way. They had used him, sure, but hadn't he used them right back? Didn't he want to go into space more than he wanted anything? He never would have got this far without their conniving. He had traded his charisma for their cooperation, and if he made it to the moon it would be worth the compromise. He'd already swiped a promotion out of the bargain.

As for moving back in with Elsa, he had obeyed the letter of the law. He'd gone back to the house and set up shop in the den. He didn't talk to her, he didn't eat with her—they hardly even saw each other. They might have been tenants in the same apartment building. She ignored him in private, and in public she was still the dutiful and decorative wife, which was what made him think that he wasn't the only one who had been read the riot act.

This latest publicity stunt had seemed reasonable enough when Yardley had proposed it. A little intimidating—Thanksgiving dinner with the President and his family—but reasonable. That was before Al had realized that they would, of course, have to share a room…

But a Naval man is equal to any challenge, however gruesome, and Al wasn't about to let this lick him. Working up the courage at last, he squared his shoulders and entered the bedroom suite.

Elsa was in bed, lying with her back to the door. Al didn't speak as he closed the door and undressed with brisk efficiency, laying his uniform away with care. He put on his pajamas and went through to the adjoining bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Elsa lay still, listening to the sounds of Al's evening toilette—sounds that she hadn't heard for the better part of two months. Theirs was no marriage now. It was a mockery. A travesty. But necessary.

It had been John Yardley who had explained the necessity. Yardley, a man with whom she had never had any dealings until this impossible Italian had insinuated his way into her life. She didn't care about how it looked. She didn't care whether or not Al got to go to the moon. He was a philanderer, a liar and a cheat, and he didn't deserve to go.

She did, however, care about her job. She was the best computer programmer they had. They said when the shuttle went up they would be able to send more people: seven or eight on a mission. Then they would have the luxury of sending specialists, not just pilots with diverse interests. Who knew? Maybe in a few years they would consider sending a woman…

She felt ashamed of sharing Al's dream. It was as stupid as him taking an interest in computers, which the fool had actually tried to do. He was hopeless. All he did was posit stupid theories about computers that could talk and think for themselves, like a bad science fiction writer.

Though compelled to play this stupid game… Elsa's cheeks burned with indignant anger at the thought of the ridiculous demands being placed upon her. If she had been the betrayer they would never have forced Al to stay beneath the same roof with her, tolerating her hated presence on pain of banishment from NASA. Yet because she was a woman her job was threatened if she did not play the fond little bride. Yardley had at least not minced words.

"I don't give a damn if you divorce him," he had said. "You go ahead and hang him out to dry if you want to—I'll even help you find the lawyer to do it—but not until after the fuss dies down."

Elsa had frowned, distrustfully. She thought Yardley was on Al's side and she said so.

This had touched a nerve. Suddenly this almost total stranger was unloading his anger and frustration upon her.

"Damn it, I tried!" he exclaimed. "I tried to like him, and he had me going for a while, but he's nothing but trouble. POWs are always trouble: their heads aren't right, and they don't understand the world! Wouldn't be so bad if he had a better attitude, but damn it! Your godforsaken husband is one big pain in the neck!"

The door to the bathroom opened, and Elsa waited breathlessly, wondering what he would do. She felt the blankets on the other side of the bed being drawn back, and the mattress rippled as he sat.

She whirled, sitting up as she went.

"That is it?" she demanded. "After all this, you just climb into bed as if nothing has happened?"

He looked at her with an obstinate, dogged expression. "I've had worse bedfellows than you," he said levelly. Then he lay down.

With a shriek of rage, her mouth spouting obscenities that would have made her mother blush with shame, Elsa put her palms against his shoulder and her feet against his knee, and pushed him out of bed.

Al landed on the floor with a thump, dragging half of the bedclothes with him. A sharp, ugly oath rang out, and then he sprung to his feet, dark eyes flashing with anger.

"_Maledicali, voi strega ungherese_!" he snarled.

Elsa tried to gather up the blankets and her dignity, squaring her shoulders and setting her jaw and tilting her chin proudly. Her eyes warred with his for a moment, then he muttered a black imprecation in a language that she recognized only as certainly not Western, and with a flick of his wrist yanked the coverlet off the bed.

"I'll sleep on the floor," he growled blackly, glaring at her briefly before turning his back. He wrapped the coverlet around his shoulders, looping it over his head like a hood, and then threw himself down upon the ground with an air of finality that made her flinch.

Soon the slow, deep sounds of slumber came from the corner. Quivering a little with pent-up emotions and frustration, Elsa turned off the lamp and slowly relaxed into uneasy dreams.

MWMWWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

You tried not to dream. When you dreamed you left yourself at the mercy of your mind, which was worse than the mercy of the V.C. Not even Quon or his soldiers or his cruel women could devise terrors as complete as the ones your mind could produce. There were nightmares about the next torture session, nightmares so vivid that you didn't know which pains came from your battered body and which from your anguished mind. Then there were the dreams about your death, in silent ignominy somewhere deep in this jungle hell where no one would ever find you… and dreams where some SEAL found your dog tags, wherever they were, and reported you dead, and Beth left you, and remarried, and then you came home, after surviving everything, all the ugliness and the misery and the horror, to find that she was gone… that she'd given up on you just because some lousy Marine kid had croaked… because there had been a bastard of a lawyer there waiting to scoop her up…

_Those_ dreams made you believe, as nothing else could, that the world was the Devil's playground and you were his favorite toy.

That was why Al was glad that they weren't letting him sleep. They had staked him out on the jungle floor, spread-eagled with his wrists and his ankles bound to heavy rods of bamboo driven through the spongy earth and into the heavy clay beneath. Not content with leaving him to the mosquitoes, they had first leaned him back over a log, the bole of what once had been a mighty tree. It was a good seventy inches in circumference, and his back was bent over it so that his abdomen was at the apex of an arch. Hands and feet were bound as far away from the log as possible, on either side, and his limbs pulled taught. His head fell back between tormented shoulders, ill-equipped after years of abuse to handle this stress without agony.

The discomfort after so many hours was incredible. He couldn't feel his feet anymore, which was probably a blessing, but his calves and knees were alive with horrible tingling like the pricking of thousands of tiny needles jabbing outward from the bone. His hamstrings burned and spasms wracked their way through his buttocks and pelvis, and up his unnaturally vaulted spine. Slivers and rough bark dug into his naked back. His shoulders… he couldn't think about his shoulders. Why the hell had God given Man shoulders, anyway?

His head felt heavy and swollen, bloated with blood that his weary heart couldn't pump properly. He had vomited earlier, when the guards had been beating on him with their rubber bludgeons, and every seventh or eighth time he blinked a crusted bit of chyme would work itself into one eye or the other, burning terribly and prompting tears that ran down his forehead and tickled among the roots of his filthy hair.

His arms were the mirror images of his legs, at least as the progression of discomfort went. The one exception was that although his hands were numb, the very tips of his fingers burned with an indescribably cold, as if they were frozen beyond recovery.

And the insects. Not just the mosquitoes feasting on his raw, sunburned flesh and stealing blood he could neither afford to lose nor adequately replenish on a diet consisting of one meager helping of rice almost every day. There were termites in the rotting tree beneath him, and they were crawling into places where they really, _really_ didn't belong. A spider had crept across his face a while back, and there were horrible creeping things of every description wending their way past, around and over him, leaving tickling trails in memory of their passage. His body was drenched in sweat and caked with blood and grime and foulness… and he would never, ever be clean again. No wonder Beth didn't want him, vile and stinking and filthy. Worthless. No wonder she had left him.

She had left him!

Oh, _God_, she had left him!

He howled with abject anguish that had nothing to do with the torment of his body.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Elsa awoke with a start. Something was wrong. For a moment she lay still, her heart pounding. She was in a guest bedroom in the White House, and something was not right.

She got out of bed, her long satin nightgown falling down around her ankles. Moving silently across the lush carpet, she made her way blindly to the corner where Al was sleeping. She knelt in the darkness, feeling for the coverlet. It was there, but Al was not. The blanket was cold, too, as if it had been vacated a long time ago.

Startled, Elsa moved to switch on the light. She had a memory for spaces, which was one of the qualities that made her such an adept programmer. Ninety percent of programming was envisioning the circuits.

The room was empty, but Al's pajama shirt lay in a crumpled heap, almost under the foot of the bed, and his pants had been shucked with equal lack of ceremony near the door to the bathroom.

Now she could hear the water, running through a showerhead. She opened the door to the bathroom, and the darkness was broken by the light spilling in from the bedroom.

Al was on all fours in the tub, the stream of fluid beating down upon his back. His head hung limply between his shoulders, his mouth was open, and he had his eyes screwed shut. Presently a violent retching motion ripped through the lean muscles of his abdomen, shaking his whole body with a seizure of revulsion. He whimpered a little and his eyes pulled more tightly closed. His chest heaved with shallow, painful breaths and his limbs were quivering.

Elsa was frozen for a moment, staring in horror at the image of wretchedness before her. Then her body took control, sweeping her mind blindly along. She turned on the bathroom light and strode forward. With a quick, assertive slap she disengaged the shower. Al flinched at the sound, then subsisted into wretched trembling. He had been running the water as cold as it would go, and as she knelt next to the tub Elsa could see the hideous blue tint of his lips. She put a hand on his shoulder.

"Al?" she murmured softly. "Al, are you awake?"

He pulled away, almost violently. His right hand slipped on the slick porcelain, and he fell. His head cracked against the side of the tub and he landed painfully in its bottom, a harsh noise of startled pain ripping from his lips. Frightened, bewildered brown eyes searched the ceiling and settled on her face.

"G-g-go aw-way," he muttered darkly, his chattering teeth hampering his speech.

He had had another nightmare: that was plain. A nightmare about that purgatory, the hell he had lived for six long years. Elsa felt a wave of pity, and something else that she hadn't expected to feel for this man ever again. A warm, blessed burst of love. What she needed and wanted was suddenly not important. All that mattered was what Al needed.

She raised herself on her knees and reached out for him. "Al," she murmured. "Al, you're safe here…"

He shook his head and tried to shrink away, but he was dazed from the blow to the head and not really fully in the present. She had her hands on his shoulders before he could fight her, and she drew him up into her arms, holding him against the side of the tub. His wounded head fell against her shoulder, and she stroked it.

As if he had been frantically craving such comfort, Al lifted his hands to clutch pathetically at her arms. "Elsa, Elsa," he mumbled. Then a sob shook him. "Elsa, I'm dirty… so dirty…"

He wasn't. His skin was wrinkled from the water, white and immaculately clean. His hair, soaking the shoulder of her nightgown with its frigid runoff, still smelled of its last washing. But she could feel the aura of shame that was clinging to him, the memory of filth and wretchedness.

"I know," she said gently. "I know. I'll help you wash."

"So dirty…" he murmured, screwing his eyes closed again.

Elsa eased him back into the tub, leaning him against the side. He lay limp and complacent as she plugged the drain and turned on the tap, taking care that the temperature was warm and soothing. As the water level rose, slowly creeping up and over his legs and then higher and higher on his abdomen, she lathered her hands with fragrant soap and began to massage his arms and chest. He did not move, passively accepting her ministrations. While she worked she murmured softly, alternating between his tongue and hers as words failed her in each. She said nothing profound or important, but the sound of her wandering voice seemed to comfort him. His face began to relax out of his hard lines, and the spasming muscles in his back and torso ceased their twitching.

She washed his shoulders and his back, his elbows. She worked the lather between his fingers and then lifted his feet out of the water and did the same for his toes. His legs, his knees. Finally she found the bottle of shampoo left out for their use, and massaged a little into his hair. She eased him backwards into the water to rinse it, stroking his cheeks between passes of his head.

Then slowly his eyes opened and fixed upon her. The ghosts were gone—or buried. A wry smile twisted his pale lips.

"Couldn't wait to get me naked again, huh?" he asked.

She laughed at the unexpectedness of the remark, and then suddenly he was sitting up and kissing her. Somehow he got out of the tub and she was rubbing him dry with the thick, luxuriant towel, and then they were backing into the bedroom. She reached to turn off the light, but he stayed her hand.

"Uh-uh, gorgeous," he chided. "We're gonna spend the night, we'll do it properly!"

"You are the Devil," she gasped, writhing with pleasure as he worked her free of her garment.

"Mmph," he grunted softly, easing her backwards onto the bed. "What would Mary Todd Lincoln say about the antics going on under her roof tonight?"


	32. Chapter ThirtyOne

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Al sat down on the edge of Elsa's bed. Once upon a time it had been his _and_ Elsa's, but considering their marital situation he was pushing his luck to think of it that way.

The remainder of their visit at the White House had passed without incident. They had awakened twined around each other after their night of passionate lovemaking, and Elsa hadn't seemed willing to talk about it. Really, Al didn't want to either. Not that it hadn't been terrific. Elsa was always terrific. It was just that, if he talked about _that_ he would have to talk about what had preceded it.

He didn't know why he had let her do that. Just laid there like a lump and let her bathe him, for crying out loud, as if he was a baby or an invalid. But it had felt so good, so soothing to be tended to by soft, gentle fingers that knew nothing of misery or pain or wretchedness or loneliness. The hands massaging soap into his skin had not just been comforting his body, they had been washing away some of the ugliness in his mind. The moment had been so precious, and his psyche so vulnerable that he had been unable to resist surrendering to her hands.

That didn't mean he wasn't as embarrassed as hell about it now.

She was out getting groceries, and he had come up here in her absence because… probably because he wished it _was_ still "their" bedroom. Her indifferent attitude towards him for the last few days made it plain that she might be willing to cuddle when the chips were down, and she wasn't adverse to a little hanky-panky when you caught her with her guard down, but he wasn't forgiven.

Really, why should she forgive him? She didn't know he was telling the truth. He had certainly not gone out of the way to seem credible. If he had told her the whole story off the bat, before she saw pictures of him and some blonde smeared across the cover of a supermarket rag, then maybe he could call her unreasonable. Better yet, he should have phoned her from that motel and given her the scoop then, even before she was expecting him home. That's what he would have done if it'd been Beth waiting at home.

No, if it had been Beth he probably would have brought Ana and the kids here, so that she could take a look at Ana's bruises and that little girl's black eye.

Al scrubbed his face with his hands. Damn it, it was so easy to forget for minutes or hours or even a whole day that he was married to Elsa. Why was it so hard to forget Beth?

He lay backwards on the bed, his feet dangling just above the carpet. Twelve days. Twelve days until launch. In less than a week he'd head in for the last round of physicals, for pre-launch quarantine and final sweeps of the itinerary. They were going up on the twenty-first. They'd circle the moon on Christmas Eve, and do the walks on Christmas Day.

Everything was in place. He had one more press conference to get through, and then that would be it until after splashdown. Jim and Clem had already decided they wanted to make reading Genesis on Christmas Eve a tradition, following suit with the boys from Apollo 8, which had also been a yuletide mission. Eight years ago… God, eight whole years. Hard to believe.

Hard to believe, at the same time, that it had _only_ been eight years since that Christmas. He remembered it too damned well. He'd been in Major Quon's little camp outside of Cham Hoi for just over four months, and he could almost feel his body feeding on itself in protest of the third set of dietary restrictions he'd been placed on since the crash. First it had been rice and soup twice a day at Hoa Lo, then one or the other, never both, at Briarpatch. Quon, however, couldn't afford to let his captives get so strong, or maybe he just wanted to break them faster, because out there it was no more than one bowl of rice _per diem_ and often less.

Al's stomach growled at him, and he almost laughed as he smacked it with an open palm. He was getting soft. Had a good, hearty breakfast, and at one in the afternoon his body was already crying out to be fed. What next?

He rolled over onto his belly and stretched his arms out, luxuriating in the gentle tugging on his muscles. His hands slipped under Elsa's pillow, and the fingers of his left closed around a familiar-feeling chain. He frowned. What were his dog tags doing under her pillow?

Hang on, his dog tags where under his shirt where they belonged.

So whose were these?

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM

Elsa fumbled with the key, hampered by her armload of groceries. She won through to the kitchen and began to unload.

What was she going to do? She couldn't deny that she felt something for Al, not after what had happened on Pennsylvania Avenue. Yet the fact remained that he had betrayed her with another woman.

Andrew would never have done that. She knew that Andrew would never have done that.

Or would he? The truth was that she needed to believe Andrew would have been the perfect husband. Part of her needed to be certain that her life with him would have been an idyll of bliss. She had to hold on to that dream.

It was harder to hold onto now. Her marriage to Al should have been an absolute disaster right from the start. From the moment they had met they had been at odds. There should never have been any happiness, or pleasure—unless it was the pleasure of two animals engaged in hedonistic rituals so akin to violence as to be almost indistinguishable. Yet she could not deny that, though they had argued and fought and come close to murdering one another many times, there had also been nights spent in enthralled discussion of some book or play; afternoons poring over her computer schematics with the first man willing to take instruction from her. There had been Sundays on the beach, and Friday nights in little restaurants, and strange, erotic reinterpretations of board games that had them laughing and gasping at once. Ice cream on hot summer days, steaming baths on cool winter evenings, and finally a night of "antics" that Al was quite right would have had every First Lady except perhaps the current one blushing in consternation.

It was bewildering. If the imperfect marriage had been so delightful, was it not possible that the perfect marriage would have been dreadful? That thought terrified Elsa more than she would have liked to admit.

She needed to get out of these clothes and into something more comfortable. The supermarket had been a veritable zoo, and she was feeling tired and not a little cross.

Stowing away the last of her purchases, Elsa ascended the short flights of stairs to her bedroom. She froze on the threshold. Al was standing in the middle of the room, frowning pensively. And in his hands…

"Give me those!" she cried frantically, running towards him. "Give them to me, they're mine!"

He turned with a sardonic laugh. "Oh, they're definitely not _yours_," he said.

The mockery in his tone struck fear into her heart. He wasn't going to give them back! They were all she had left, and he wasn't going to give them back!

"Give them to me! Give them back!"

She tried to grab them, but he held them out of her reach, catching her around the waist with his free arm.

"Ah-ah," he taunted. "First you tell me the story. Where'd you get these, little lady?"

Elsa wasn't even listening. She had to get them back! She had to! Oh, the beast, the wicked beast, to hold them like that, like a prize to be fought over! Her treasure, her one treasure…

"Monster!" she shrieked. "Monster! _Elfajzott_! Give them to me!"

"Now that's a good place to start!" Al said cheerfully. "What does that word mean?"

She was too desperate and too angry to care that she was acceding to his demands. "In English you say _bastard_!" she said. "Illegitimate, worthless, vile and unwanted, loathsome, stinking, wicked—"

Al chuckled. "Cool down or I'll think you mean it as an insult!" he said. "Now, just tell me where these came from, dolly, and then you can have them back."

The last word triggered her terror afresh, and the rage was forgotten. "Give them back! They're mine, give them to me! Al, please give them back! Please!"

Quite against her will, she began to cry. No one was supposed to touch them. No one but her. They were precious. They were irreplaceable. They were all that she had left.

"Give them back!" she sobbed again. "Give them back to me!"

Al's expression changed to one of contrition and concern. "Aw, kid, don't cry," he said softly, stroking the tears away from her cheeks. "Don't cry, honey; I was only teasing. Ssh, don't cry, Elsa. Here, here they are. Don't cry."

She snatched the chain from his fingers and pressed the thin leaves of metal to her lips hastily and yet reverently, the way that Mama would always kiss the medallion of her rosary in moments of anxiety. Andrew's dog tags. Her Andrew's dog tags. The feel of their weight in her hand soothed her very soul.

Al was still petting her face. "There, baby, there," he murmured. "I'm sorry, honey. I was only teasing."

She nodded, her eyes still fixed upon the letters that spelled out his name, and the numbers that had identified him to the Navy and the rest of the world. A hiccough jerked through her lungs. Al hugged her, and she let her head rest upon his shoulder.

"There," he said again. "Now tell me who he is, honey. Who is Andrew del Rio?"

She looked up with an irrational gasp of surprise. Of course, the name was imprinted on the tags, and he would know it, but somehow hearing it from Al's lips was stranger than anything she could have imagined. "He was a boy—" she began, then amended her words. "A man. A man I met when I was at school in California."

"At Caltech?" Al asked.

"Yes… no… no, I didn't meet him at school…" It was all so bewildering. She had never expected to tell Al this. How did one start such a story?

Al eased her down onto the bed, leaning back against the headboard and holding her against his chest. She curled her legs in towards her body and felt him remove first one pump, and then the other. His hand moved soothingly over her feet, while the other embraced her across her abdomen. She let her head rest on his shoulder.

"You didn't meet him at school," he prompted gently.

"No…" Elsa drew a deep, shuddering breath. "No. He was a boxer, a prize fighter. He had come to America about the same time that I did, hoping to do well in his sport. He was very good, but it is hard for foreigners to break into the game, you see…"

"Where was he from?" Al asked when her words lost direction and died away. "Mexico?"

Elsa shook her head. "Argentina," she whispered. "He used to call it _la nacion de dos caras_. In English it means—"

"The nation of two faces," Al said.

She shivered and leaned further in towards him. And he spoke Spanish, and this was the marriage that should never have had any happiness… "He said because things changed so often," she continued. "He loved America. He became a citizen, not long after we met. I… he worked days in a coffee house where I used to go when I wanted to be alone. Soon I wasn't going there to be alone anymore. He had a little house, by the sea. We used to go there and…"

She stopped. That was too intimate a detail to share. Inappropriate, anyway, to tell your husband how you had once made love to other men.

"Do the bingo-bango-bongo?" Al asked, his voice amused and yet comforting. His silly word for intercourse brought a tiny smile to Elsa's lips.

"Yes, and it was wonderful," she said. Then she flushed. She should not have said that. It would make him angry, and with reason. Did she want to hear how wonderful his encounters with prostitutes and wantons were? "I'm sorry, Al," she said hastily. "I mean…"

"You mean it was wonderful," Al said firmly. "Young love…always is..."

There was a dreamy lilt to his tone as he said that, and she wondered if he was remembering his own young love. Elizabeth, perhaps? But he had not been so very young when he had married her. Another girl?

Andrew, she reminded herself. Andrew. "We were to be married," she said. "But first he wanted to serve his new country, to give back some of what had been given, he said."

Al stiffened a little. "Vietnam," he said quietly. "Oh, Elsa, honey…"

"He enlisted," she said fiercely, unwilling to accept his pity. "He was Navy, too." One hand clutched Andrew's dog tags close to her heart. The other fumbled with the collar of Al's shirt, drawing out his slender chain. She placed the smooth metal tabs side by side.

"Sailor?" Al asked, resting his chin on the crown of her head.

"No, a Marine," Elsa replied. "He was a Marine. Very brave, very strong, so handsome in his uniform… like you." She closed her eyes. Every time she thought about this it grew harder and harder to overcome the desolation of the loss. "He promised, when the war was over he would come home and we would be married, have children…"

"I thought you said you didn't want kids," said Al.

Elsa stopped. She had thought so, too. No, that was silly. Of course she didn't want kids. "I don't," she said, then pressed on because she didn't like that he had caught her in a contradiction like that. "When his time was up he decided to stay, because they needed men. He wanted to serve his country, and he said… he said that if he stayed, one more boy who didn't want to go to war could stay home… st-stay safe."

She shivered and Al held her more tightly. The hand that had been petting her feet now stroked the length of her flank, down her ribs and into the curve of her waist and over her hip.

"He was killed in action," Al said.

Elsa felt a burst of gratitude that he had not forced her to say it.

"Yes… in a way," she said. "There was an accident. Miscommunication. They dropped the napalm too soon, before the Marines had cleared out of the area. Five of the men in his squadron died then, and Andrew… he was burned so badly. Eighty percent of his body. They airlifted him home as quickly as they could. At the hospital they tried so hard, but his blood became infected and—and he died."

Al's lips brushed her forehead. "Elsa, Elsa, honey," he chanted.

That was as much as she had ever told anyone. The dark secret she had carried for so long was weighing heavy on her heart, and she had to speak. She had to free herself of this silent anguish.

"It was my fault," she said abruptly.

"No," Al told her. "No, baby, no, it wasn't your fault."

"It was!" Elsa reiterated. "I was here, in Florida. I had just finished my degree, I was here starting work with NASA. I didn't even know he had been wounded until he was dead. His friends couldn't find me. My friends didn't know. He died because he could not hold on hard enough, and if I had been there I could have helped him. I could have made him fight, the way that I made you fight when you wanted to quit because of your claustrophobia, but I was here, because my job was more important than Andrew. It's my fault, my fault that he died…"

She was crying now, but she didn't care. Al's gentle arms around her made it all right to cry. He stroked her hair and held her tight as she poured out her emptiness on his strong shoulders. They had borne so much, surely they could bear this, too.

The tears seemed to purify her heart, washing away the brokenness and healing old wounds. At last, when the weeping ended, she felt a strange new strength beyond her exhaustion. A burden she had not really realized she carried seemed lifted from her soul. She raised her head and looked into Al's beautiful dark eyes.

"You were right to follow your dream, Elsa," he said. "You couldn't tie up your life waiting for him forever. That's not—" His voice faltered for a moment. "That's not fair to you. Not fair to any woman to have her life tied up just because… because a man's off doing what he has to do. You made the right choice. He knows you love him."

Elsa smiled through the tears still wet upon her cheeks. "That's what the nurse said," she told him. "That is just what the nurse said about living my own life, not being tied up. She was so kind… told me how brave Andrew was, how he had always tried to smile. She told me he was so handsome, his smile just like Robert Redford's. She spent a whole afternoon with me, telling me about his last days. She was the one who saved his dog tags for me."

"World needs more nurses like that," Al said, smoothing her hair away from her face.

That was true, Elsa thought. Suddenly she realized she couldn't remember the nurse's name. The sweet, dark-haired nurse who had offered empathy and kindness that made Elsa believe she truly understood such a loss… But if she could not immortalize the name, at least she could immortalize the deed.

"She was so kind," she repeated. "She took time for me… and she was so busy. It was just after Easter, and she was getting ready to be married. She was moving away from San Diego, and leaving the Navy, too, and still she took the time to tell me how Andrew—"

Beneath her Al had suddenly gone rigid. She straightened in confusion. His face was a horrible shade of gray, and his eyes stared vacantly off into the distance.

"You started at NASA…" he croaked.

"The spring of nineteen sixty-nine," Elsa said. His expression was frightening. Numb and terrifying. A mask of death, yes, that was it. As if some part of him was dying…

A tremor like the ones that sometimes roused her in the night ripped through his body.

"And this nurse… she said that, about being tied down?"

"Just exactly what you said, yes, yes, she did," Elsa affirmed hastily, resisting the urge to shrink away. He had tolerated her ugliness. She could tolerate his.

His throat spasmed as if he was going to vomit.

"Damn it," he gasped, his voice so strangled that it seemed scarcely capable of producing the sounds. "God damn it."

Elsa tried to caress his jaw, hoping to drive away whatever demon was tormenting him now. Al slapped her hand away and pushed her off of him, getting to his feet and striding from the room as if Satan himself was on his heels.

Bewildered and shocked and somehow humiliated, Elsa lay on the bed, clutching her stinging wrist, and felt the anger rekindling in her heart.


	33. Chapter ThirtyTwo

Note: To those who came up with the name for Al's Command Module, thank you! I'm standing on your shoulders there… I just wish I could remember who you are and where I read it!

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

"Damn, Calavicci, take it easy!" Clem Jacobs exclaimed.

Al, hauling wrathfully on the bar of the lat machine, pretended he couldn't hear. His undershirt was drenched with sweat and his bare arms rippled, relishing the strain. His mind focused on jerk after jerk, working out its frustrations in physical exertion. What he really needed was some sparring with a smart-mouthed partner. Nothing like throwing punches and insults at the same time. That not being a NASA-sanctioned catharsis, however, he would have to settle for this apparatus with its wires and pulleys and weights. His arms worked harder and faster. The cables began to creak.

Jim, who was doing hamstring curls on the next bench, frowned at him. "You better cool it, Al. You're going to strain something."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Al grunted, still working his arms so that the iron plates in front of him rose and fell with the regularity of a pump jack.

"Get off it, Calavicci," Jacobs said. He was unloading the free weights from his favorite barbell. "What're you so angry about, anyways?"

"Who says I'm angry?" Al pinned his attention all the more fervently on the resistance of the bar.

"You kidding?" asked Jacobs. "When you're not slamming doors or pumping iron you look like a bull ready to rip somebody's head off."

"Al, knock it off!" Jim said as the weights came down with undue violence.

"Both of you mind your own business," Al snarled between clenched teeth.

"Don't be stupid," Jim said.

Al turned his head to glare at him. The action sent a twinge up the side of his neck, but he ignored it. "Oh, so now I'm stupid?"

"You pull a muscle now, they won't let you go up next week," Jim reasoned. "Take a break."

Damn it, the kid was right. Glowering blackly, Al raised his arms and released the bar. He swung both legs to one side of the bench and started massaging the biceps of his left arm. Jacobs threw him a towel, which he caught expertly and used to wipe down his face and neck.

"You gonna tell us what's wrong?" the Texan asked, coming over to sit on one of the benches near his crewmates.

"It's nothing," Al said stoically.

"Then there's no reason you can't tell us what's going on," Jim reasoned.

Al looked from one clean-cut, earnest, all-American face to the other. In a little over a week these men would be all that stood between him and the myriad dangers of spaceflight. They were going to have to trust each other. They were going to have to be honest with each other. Besides, they'd find out sooner or later.

"Elsa's divorcing me," he confessed.

"_What_?" Jim cried.

Jacobs shook his head. "Damn. Why?"

Al shrugged. " 'Cause we hate each other's guts? 'Cause we can't settle on a color we'd both like to paint the kitchen? 'Cause news of my sexual exploits is adorning supermarket checkouts across the country?"

"You aren't sayin' she believes that?" Jacobs asked.

"She wouldn't divorce you," Jim said, with all the innocence of a man still married to the love of his life. "Not Elsa."

"Tell her that," Al said. "Soon's Yardley'll let her she's getting me up in court. She's got a lawyer already."

"I'll talk to her," Jim said fiercely. "I'm not gonna let her do it. She can't just throw your marriage away! You're perfect for each other!"

Al shook his head wearily. "Let it go, kid. Just let it go. It was bound to happen."

"But…"

Clem put a silencing hand on the younger man's shoulder. "Commander said let it go, fly boy," he chided. Then he slapped his knee and got to his feet. "I'm hitting the shower," he announced. "We've only got forty-five minutes till we're due for our makeovers."

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

The last press conference was to be officially televised and broadcast live on NBC, which meant that the astronauts had to be dusted down with face powder. Jim and Clem thought this was an indignity. Al felt rather differently about it. Makeup was, as any actor knew, an integral part of the theater, and since it was all one big act, anyway, why not?

He sat meekly in the makeshift green room while a sprightly young woman brushed powder onto his cheeks, nose and forehead, chattering excitedly about the launch. He closed his ears to the sound and reflected grimly that he'd done it this time.

Elsa wouldn't even look at him now. He couldn't blame her. She had expected him to go on with the moment of tenderness, to continue his consolation and keep whispering assurances and understanding—not run out of the room like a demon fleeing the sunlight to sit on the floor of the bathroom, retching fruitlessly for half an hour while bitter tears burned unshed in his eyes.

He couldn't… he _couldn't_ bear it. Beth, his Beth, feeling her life was being tied up because of him, putting her dreams and her future on hold because _he_ had been selfish enough to sign up for a second tour instead of staying home like she wanted him too… so cut up about the way he had abandoned her that she was pouring out this pain on a total stranger…

A total stranger who had shared his bed for the better part of a year.

It wasn't fair. All he wanted was forgetfulness. Why couldn't he forget? Every time he even got close, there was another ghoul popping out of the shadows to torment him. All he wanted to do was forget.

He was going to, he told himself fiercely. He had lost sight of that goal in the whirlwind of change that had encompassed the last two years. The battle with his mind, the struggles to qualify, the funding wars, Elsa… all of those things and more had distracted him from his primary reason for coming out here. To forget. To have a fresh start. To pretend that the last decade and a half hadn't even happened.

Well, his chance was coming. In a few days he'd be leaving the earth behind. It would be a different man who would splash down just before New Year's. A new man. Albert Calavicci, the fifth attempt. When he got back to earth he would wash his hands of Elsa Orsós and NASA and everything else he had built up since his reassignment. Then… what?

Maybe he could go back to school. He'd love to learn more about computers… and if there was one place you could count on meeting girls of every description it was M.I.T. That was it! He'd go back to school, throw himself into the blossoming disco culture—surely there were ladies galore who would fall for a guy who'd been to the moon and back!—and forget. Forget. God willing, as Elsa would say _ha isten is úgy akarja_, he would finally be able to forget.

If any faith at all had survived the years of cruelty and hatred and desolation that had begun when Poppa died and culminated in that hideous homecoming in '73, Al would have prayed for the blessing of forgetfulness.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Elsa sat on the sofa, her legs curled under her, rubbing Andrew's dog tags between her thumb and forefinger and staring at the television set. Al, looking fearless and handsome and utterly dashing, was addressing a multitude of reporters. His face was alight with optimism and contentment, as if nothing was wrong in the entire world.

You couldn't tell, looking at him, that he was the most selfish, ignorant, evasive and infuriating worm ever to crawl upon the face of the earth.

He held it against her, her past love. He was jealous of Andrew, sweet, brave Andrew who had done what even Albert Calavicci had never been called upon to do and surrendered his life for his country. He had pretended to feel sorrow at her loss, but his body had betrayed him in the end. He was angry that she had had a man before him—like all men he was grasping and jealous and wicked. Sure, he could have as many girls as he wanted, flirt when married as well as when single, betray his wife with cheap prostitutes for the titillation and amusement of the world, and call out to his first wife after making love to his second all he wanted, but the knowledge that Elsa had had a love before him made him sick with envy.

It was loathsome, and Elsa burned with anger whenever she thought of it. She had entertained the dream, while he had held her and reminded her that she was worthy of care and affection despite the way she had failed Andrew, that they might have a long and happy life together, two wounded souls finding their solace in each other. He had been hurt by Beth, she by the vicissitudes of fate and the cruel hand of _pseudomonas aeruginosa_. They might have found healing in one another, as she had found healing in pouring out her guilt in his arms.

But he was determined to be envious, to put on a show of righteous anger, pushing her away as if she was vile and repulsive in his eyes. Unclean because she had committed the unforgivable act of sleeping with a man who was not Al Calavicci.

She would drag his name through the mud. She would take him for everything that he had. He would not shame her so easily. He would not scorn Andrew so easily. There would be a divorce, and it would not be pleasant. With all the strength of her iron will and the might of her fighting spirit, she vowed that he would wish he had never crossed paths with Elsa Ildiko Orsós, who should have been del Rio.

As soon as the mission was over and the eyes of the press turned away from NASA.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

At Mission Control in Houston, Texas, scientists and astronauts and bureaucrats cheered, clapping one another on the back and hooting with delight. Over the radio feed from Cap Com, Commander Calavicci was eulogizing over the beauty before his eyes between acknowledgments of the engine jettison procedures.

Gene Kranz, the last of the Apollo Flight Directors and one of Yardley's oldest friends, clapped the Associate Administrator of Manned Space Flight on the shoulder.

"We should televise the whole damned mission," he said bracingly. "That sailor's delivering better stuff than Hollywood could script."

John tried to smile, but the fact was that he was too damned tired. Two years was too long by far to struggle with a boneheaded, scarred and generally uncooperative Italian who was so used to fighting that he didn't even remember how to play ball. This wasn't what he wanted from life. He wanted aeronautics. He wanted to work on the Shuttle, to craft her like she was his baby. Now, if everything went smoothly, he might just get the chance.

"He'd better," he muttered. "Bloody wop shouldn't even be up there."

A dreamy look came into Gene's eyes as he fingered the buttons on the only even-numbered mission vest he had ever worn. "I dunno," he said. "I think if anybody deserves to be up there it's men like Calavicci. I mean, look what he's been through, and he came through it all with courage and dignity. That's what Apollo's about. What it's always been about. American courage. American dignity."

A siren sounded somewhere on the other edge of the room, and Kranz stiffened. "Report?" he barked, dropping his sentimental demeanor in favor of the air of command he exuded as no other man could.

"Got a red light on the S-II!" someone shouted.

"Confirm, Enterprise?" Kranz asked, turning to Colonel Simmons.

"Uh… Enterprise, confirm a red light on your S-II module?" the astronaut asked. Calavicci's voice filtered through the room.

"That's a negative, Houston," he said. "No red light up here. Probably a glitch on your end—damn, Pete, you oughta see this sky!"

"Check aft sensors!" another voice barked.

"I bet it's really something, isn't it?" Simmons asked.

"Damned right!" Calavicci enthused.

"Aft sensors!" Gene barked.

Simmons grinned sheepishly. "Al, the fellas out here want you to check your aft sensors. Think you can take a break from the sightseeing to manage that for us?"

"As a personal favor to you, buddy? Sure." There was moment of silence. Then, "Nothing, Houston. Must be something wrong with your equipment."

Yardley wasn't so sure. Sending refurbished rockets into space suddenly seemed like a bad idea. All very well for the budget, but how was it going to look if those boys blew up without even making it into orbit?

"Confirm sensors functioning properly!" Gene snapped. Then the room went suddenly silent, save for the frantic beeping of one of the command consoles, as a heated exclamation ripped through the speakers.

"_God damn it_!" Calavicci roared. "Jim, what the hell was that?"

"Iterative guidance malfunction!" someone called. "I. U. exceeding maximum limits…"

"Al, what's going on up there?" Simmons demanded.

"Uh—Houston, we just had one hell of a shiver up here… attempting to assess…"

"Recommendations?" Gene demanded.

"Abort!" the same voice yelled. "Abort, or these guys are going to go up like a Roman candle!"

"Abort Mode One: Charlie," Gene instructed, striding towards Cap Com.

"Al?" Simmons said. "Prepare to go to Abort Mode One."

"_What_?" Calavicci roared. "Hell, no!"

"Abort Mode. Charlie!" Gene snapped. "They'll disengage and we'll proceed with a normal splashdown."

"You can't do that!" Yardley exclaimed. "We've never aborted a mission! You can't do that!"

"The hell I can't!" Gene cried. "We were fools to send them up with a faulty engine, and now—"

"Al, you've got to bail," Simmons was saying. "Abort Mode One: Charlie, on my mark."

He looked up for a prompt.

"In five!" the engineer called. Simmons relayed his words. "Four! Three!"

"That's a negative, Houston!" Calavicci barked. "Switching to manual control—you ready, Clem?"

"Manual control!" the Command Module pilot replied over the vox.

"Tell him to abort: that's an order!" Kranz exclaimed.

"Al, Houston says abort!" Simmons relayed. "That's an order!"

Then Calavicci snapped something unintelligible, as if he wasn't even speaking English.

"Insufficient compensation!" another scientist cried. "They're going to blow…"

"Damn it, Clem, gimme that stick!" Calavicci's voice demanded. "Jim, get these offa me!"

Another siren went off. "He's just undone his harness!" one of the medics cried.

"The idiot!" Gene cried. "Has he got a death wish, or something? Have we sent a suicidal moron into space?" He plucked the headset off of Simmons' ears and donned it himself. "Enterprise, respond!"

"I'm a little busy right now," Calavicci said tersely.

"Sir, they've got to abort!"

"Calavicci, this is Kranz," Gene said. "You abort right now, and that's an order!"

A laugh crackled across the airways, bitter and yet defiant and strangely exulted.

"Oh, no, sir, not today!" Calavicci exclaimed. "Never let any Charlie lick me yet!"

Gene cast a puzzled look at John, who shrugged. Calavicci was always saying strange things like that.

"This is mutiny, mister!" Gene cried.

"So court-martial me!" crowed Calavicci. "Clem, fix that roll… Jim, stand by to jettison the interstage."

"Standing by," said Lieutenant Taggert.

"Houston, gimme a countdown on jettison!" Calavicci ordered. "If you're not too busy filling out my reprimand papers."

"On ten!" cried another aerospace expert.

"Enterprise, jettison on ten," Gene instructed. "Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five…"

Calavicci joined in the chant. "Four. Three. Two. One. Jettison!"

There was a moment of apprehension that crackled through the room. Was it too late? Had the interstage hit the rockets? Then…

"Clear! They're clear!" somebody cried triumphantly. "Prepare for center engine shutoff."

"Prepare for center engine shutoff, Enterprise," Gene said.

"Preparing for center engine shutoff," Calavicci acknowledged. "Jim, you'll have to do that. My hands are full."

"Status report!" Kranz demanded, thrusting the headset into Simmons' lap.

The engineer who had sent up the alarm in the first place gestured broadly in bewilderment. "They should have blown. I don't know what he did, but that man must be one hell of a pilot."

Something in John Yardley's soul sparked at the words. Sure, Calavicci was one of the most stubborn, difficult men he had ever had the misfortune to meet. But as hard as he was to get along with, he was still brave and charming and incredibly resilient. Gene was right. The guys from P.R. were right. The goddamned press were right. He was the living embodiment of everything that made America great.

"He is," he said firmly. "He is one hell of a pilot. And he's one hell of a man, too."

"Amen to that," Gene said, taking a deep, calming breath as he stared up at the board tracking the shuttle's progress. "Looks like one more trip to the moon after all."

The cheers sounded again.


	34. Chapter ThirtyThree

Note: Excerpts from the King James Bible, Genesis 1: 25-31.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Al pushed off of the wall and floated towards the cupboard at the back of the cabin. He unloaded the camera that would broadcast their Christmas Eve message across the world. Clem was changing a carbon dioxide filter, and Jim had the Bible out. They would take it in turns to read the Creation story, and then each of them would have a minute to give Christmas greetings to their families before their orbit took them behind the moon and into radio blackout.

Except that Al didn't have any family: just an estranged wife who was waiting in the wings to divorce him like the nozzle he was. And Beth, out there somewhere with her new husband and maybe kids… Beth, who had forgotten about him and moved on, but who would always be the woman he loved with all his miserable heart.

Luckily, Yardley had provided materials to compensate for the lack of inspiration. He had had the boys at Public Relations draw up a few choice suggestions for things he could say. They read like a bad recruitment speech, but with nobody he knew listening Al might as well go through with the last phase of their little drama.

He didn't mind. This was worth it. The second the launch sequence had begun he knew it was worth the humiliations, the compromises, the endless physicals, the torment of psychotherapy. There wasn't a sacrifice he had made or an indignity he had suffered that he wasn't amply rewarded for by the glory of spaceflight. The sundering fury of tearing free of the bonds of the planet, then the panicked exhilaration of seizing control of this metal monster and forcing it to obey. The memory of that moment brought a defiant grin to his lips. He'd done it. Nobody else had thought it could be done. On the ground they had been shouting at him to abort. On board, Jim and Clem had been staring at him in disbelief, as if they wished they could trust him to get them through this safely, but weren't quite ready to make that leap of faith. But he'd done it. Al Calavicci had come through, proving that he brought more to the mission than good press and publicity gimmicks. Thanks to his fancy flying they were still en route to the moon, instead of facing brigades of reporters wanting to grill them on the failure of the last Apollo mission.

He floated to the porthole overlooking the lunar surface. Tomorrow he and Jim would be walking on that cratered landscape, the fifteenth and sixteenth Americans to do so. Tomorrow, Al would be the last man to stand on the moon.

If someone had told him that three years ago, he would have laughed bitterly in their face. Two years before that, he probably would have broken down in tears, more at the idea of actually being free than at the idea of doing anything so impossible. Further back still, in the old days of the Mercury program before the war had come and destroyed all of his dreams, Bingo had bragged he was going to get up here someday. Funny how the world worked. Here he was!

It was easy to forget up here. Al had known it would be. One look out that little window, and worries vanished. Apprehension about the impeding divorce proceedings melted away. He didn't even have to remember that he was married! There was no jungle on that tiny marble out the other porthole, filled with heat and suffering and hatred. There were no scars under his immaculate white flight suit. No memories of poverty and misery and loneliness. No orphanage. No overcrowded hospital ward where his father lay emaciated and feeble in a stark white bed. No empty tenement, with Momma gone forever. Nothing but the stars and the blackness of space, and the pearl-colored moon beneath him.

And Beth. Even here, at the edge of eternity, there was the memory of Beth.

If only he could see her once more. Touch her soft skin. Caress the silk of her hair. Feel her sweet lips. Speak to her. Tell her how much she meant to him. If he had only had the chance to tell her, once more, how much he loved her and how much he wanted to hold her one last time…

But she was gone. She was gone, and nothing would ever bring her back.

He turned away from the window, brandishing the camera like a gun. "You fellas ready?" he asked. "It's showtime!"

"Yes, sir!" Jim Taggert exclaimed enthusiastically.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

"_And God made the beast of the earth after his kind_," Jim read somberly. "_And cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good_."

He passed the Bible off to Al and took the camera from Clem. Al swallowed decisively and looked into the lens, the old thespian pride igniting as his voice started out strong and crisp and clear.

"_And God said_," he read; "_Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth._"

The creeping things that creepeth on the earth… he'd met a few of those in his time—both six-legged and two-legged. He blinked deliberately and kept going.

"_So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female created he them._"

Male and female. Oh, Beth. Beth, honey…

"_And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and…_"

So God had blessed them, had he? The world must have missed the memo about that one. Oh, Beth…

Al couldn't go on. He was supposed to finish the chapter, but his throat was closing and the tears were burning in his eyes. On national television, he couldn't even control his heart long enough to read from a book full of lies that he was no longer naïve enough to believe.

"_B-be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,_" he repeated, handing off to Clem, who took the volume with a little frown of surprise. The Texan looked at the page for a minute, his eyes finding the place where Al had left off.

"_And subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth,_" he read. Al floated over to relieve Jim of the camera.

"Are you okay?" Jim mouthed soundlessly.

Al nodded and grinned, making the appropriate gesture with his thumb and forefinger. "A-okay," he mouthed back, in case there was any confusion.

Clem was still reading. "_…said: Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat._"

He passed off to Jim, trying to keep up a pretense of this actually being planned. Knowing he would have to finish off after all, Al started to school his features and control his damned emotions.

"_And to every beast of the earth,_" said Jim; "_and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so_."

Now Al had the Bible in his hands again. As if nothing was happened—that was the mark of a truly great actor—he continued.

"_And God saw everything that he had made,_" he said with conviction. "_And, behold, it was very good_."

That was one Biblical allegation he didn't have trouble buying. The world _was_ good. Look at it down there, a sapphire orb all alone in a vast black sky. Creation was full of beauty. If it wasn't his lot to be part of it, that didn't make it any less wondrous.

"_And the evening and the morning were the sixth day_," he concluded.

There was a pause.

"Amen!" said Jim.

"Amen!" echoed Clem.

"Amen," said Al, because that was obviously what was expected of him. He released his hold on the tome in his hands, and it floated gently upwards, its pages fluttering a little. The public would like that. They always got a kick out of zero-G, Yardley had reminded him. Anything you can do to remind them you're in zero-G.

He put on his best Charming Calavicci smile.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he crooned like an old-time radio announcer. "We've come to the part of our program where our gallant astronauts have an opportunity to send a few words home to their nearest and dearest." If only Beth were down there, watching for him… if only, if only… "We haven't got much time," he soldiered on; "because we're coming up on the dark side of the moon, where we enter a radio blackout. So without further ado, I'll turn it over to Command Module pilot Clem Jacobs!"

He slid behind the camera as Clem took center stage. "Merry Christmas, America!" he said. "I'd like to say hello to my wife, Ramona, and my son Paul, and my girls Winona and Daphne. I don't need to tell you I love you, because you already know that, but I've got to say that as glad as I am to be up here, I sure wish I could have Christmas at home too! Or better yet, that you four could be up here with me. Good night and God bless."

He paused, then introduced Jim and floated over to the left-hand seat, where he had to get on the radio to Houston before they vanished behind the moon and lost contact.

"Lauren, honey, we did it," Jim was saying. "I know it wasn't easy on you, darling, but you got me up here as sure as anything. Baby, I love you so much, and nothing I'm going to see up here could be half so beautiful as your smile."

Al had to grab the camera with both hands to keep it from shaking. Oh, Beth, Beth, Beth. How he missed her. The one hurt he couldn't leave behind, and it was the worst hurt of all. It wasn't fair.

"And Jeremy, I know we'll be celebrating your first Christmas a little late, but Santa's extra good to little boys who wait. I love you, kid, and I'm proud you'll be able to tell your friends that your daddy went to the moon." Jim blew a kiss at the camera and wiggled his fingers as if he could see his baby boy in front of him. "Now our Mission Commander, Albert Calavicci, one of the bravest and finest men I've ever known. Let me tell you, folks, if he hadn't taken control of this rocket we wouldn't be broadcasting from up here tonight!"

He took the camera from Al, who inhaled slowly through his nose and then started into his prepared speech.

"Unlike my crew, I haven't got kids to wish a Merry Christmas to," he said; "but I like to think of the boys and girls of America as my kids—everbody's kids. You guys and gals down there are America's future, and I want you to remember that. You're the future of the greatest country in the world. It's a country where people are free to do what they like, say what they like, and be who they want to be. It's a country that can put men in space, and can even send them to the moon. It's a country where nobody's left behind." Ooh, that was a lie. Was that ever a lie. Al's smile broadened, belying his loneliness. "You stand tall today and you remember, you've got a bright and beautiful future ahead of you."

That was it. The end of the monologue from P.R. Jim grinned and gave him a thumbs-up. Al's heart palpitated. America was watching. NASA had estimated that, what with the high-profile buildup and Al's cosmetic appeal and the near-disaster at the start of the mission, interest was riding so high that this would be the most-watched broadcast since Apollo 13's re-entry. Millions of people were out there, taking time out of their holidays to watch this, but Al didn't care. There was only one person on that little blue ball that he cared about, and she probably didn't even know that he was still alive.

Or maybe she did. Maybe… maybe…

It was a chance. It was a tiny, slim chance, but it was the only chance he had, and if he gave it up he would never forgive himself. He had to do it. He couldn't spend the rest of his life asking _what if_.

He fixed his eyes on the lens as if he could look through it and out of a television set that might not even be on, and into her soul.

"And angel," he said softly, and with more sincerity than he had used for anything in numberless years; "I want you to know, if you're out there watching, that I'd sure love to send you some calla lilies tonight."

"That's it!" Clem said abruptly. "Dark side of the moon: radio blackout."

"Did that last bit get through?" Jim asked anxiously.

Jacobs shrugged. "No idea."

Taggert put a consoling hand on Al's arm. "Don't worry, Al," he said. "She knows you love her."

"Yeah?" Al croaked, hating himself for the tears that prickled in his eyes.

"Yeah!" Jim said emphatically. "She'll come around. I betcha when we splash down she'll be right there waiting to make up for all of it!"

Oh. He meant _Elsa_. Damn, Al'd forgotten all about Elsa.

"Somehow, Jimbo, I don't think so," he said ruefully.

The desolate look on Jim's face was not to be borne. Why should the kid mourn a marriage that even the husband wouldn't miss? Al shook off the ghosts and grinned. "What are we waiting for?" he demanded. "We've got work to do! Are we landing on the moon tomorrow, or not?"

"Yes, sir!" Jim said, his affect brightening enormously. "Yes, sir! We are!"

"Never said a truer word!" Jacobs exclaimed.

"Well, then, we've got work to do!" Al declared bracingly. "Hop to it, sailors!"

"We're Air Force," Jim corrected.

"Every man's a sailor on my ship!" Al contradicted. "Anchors aweigh!"

Laughing and joking, the three men set about readying the craft for the morning's separation. Presently Al pushed away from his work to peer out of the window. Enterprise were just coming out of the shadow of the moon.

He stared in astonishment at the thin bow of light that grew and expanded and swallowed the black sky. His heart sang with pure joy as the sublime glory of the lunar sunrise banished the darkness from his soul.

At least for the moment.


	35. Chapter ThirtyFour

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Mommy was sad. At the ripe old age of six years, Mikey did not comprehend the complexity of the full range of adult emotions, but he knew that Mommy was sad.

She had been sad a lot this year, ever since baby Doug had started growing in her tummy. Mikey looked at his littlest brother, sitting under the Christmas tree and banging on his new Fisher Price xylophone, and wondered if it was Dougie's fault. Probably not, because Mommy always seemed happiest when she was playing with the baby or baking cookies or doing fun Mommy things like that. She was mostly sad when Daddy was away working in Washington, or when she and Daddy had fights. Mikey didn't think that Mommy and Daddy had used to fight so much, but maybe they were getting sick of each other the way he was getting sick of playing with Lewis from next door. That made sense.

What didn't make sense was why Mommy was sad _now_. It was Christmas Morning, and Santa had brought lots and lots of wonderful presents for everybody. The house was decorated with bows and garlands and all kinds of ornaments. There was lots and lots of snow, and later Daddy was going to take Mike and Geoff to the big hill so they could go tobogganing while Dougie had his nap and Mommy made the turkey. Then they'd come home and watch the astronauts land on the moon!

All Mikey's friends were going to watch it. They'd been waiting for months and months for it. Even in school, the teachers talked about it, because it was so important! Everybody knew that it was going to be the best moon landing ever, ever! Mikey knew all there was to know about the mission and the astronauts. Daddy called him an eggs-pert.

There was Lieutenant Jim Taggert, who would drive the lunar lander and park it on the moon. Jim was from a Dakota too, but from North Dakota. He was an Air Force pilot, which meant that he wasn't scared of anything. The man who drove the rocket was Clem Jacobs, and he had a son who was an Eagle Scout. Someday, Daddy said, Mikey would be an Eagle Scout. Then Mikey had asked if when he was an Eagle Scout would Dad be an astronaut? That had made Daddy frown so that the lines showed at the sides of his mouth, and he had told Mikey to go and pick up his toys.

Then there was Commander Al Claveechee. He was the best of all! Everybody knew that he was the bravest, smartest, strongest, best astronaut in the whole world! He had saved the mission on the very first day when one of the engines went funny, and he was going to make sure that the rest of it was a stunning success. That was what the man from NASA had said on the TV: a stunning success.

All of the boys in the first grade had photographs of the astronauts cut out of newspapers and magazines and pasted to the backs of their bedroom doors. Mikey had wanted them, too, but Daddy had said he couldn't have any pictures of Commander Al. That wasn't fair, Mikey thought. He was the best, best one. So even when Daddy had brought him fancy color prints of Jim and Clem in their space suits he had refused to put them up. Without Commander Al it just wasn't right.

Mikey was an eggs-pert on Commander Al, too, though—even if Dad wouldn't let him paste his picture on the bedroom door. He had found out lots and lots from reading Daddy's grown-up magazines. He wasn't supposed to read them, but when Daddy was done with them he just put them in boxes in the basement, and it was easy to sneak them upstairs to read by the light of his Mickey Mouse flashlight when he was supposed to be sleeping. Usually he didn't bother, because Daddy's magazines were boring, but now almost every one had a story about Commander Al or Apollo 20. Mikey knew that his hero had grown up in New York City, which was the biggest and best city in the world—after all, Spider-man lived there!—and that he had joined the Navy to be a pilot. When he told the kids at school that, they laughed at him, because they said the Navy was just boats. But Mikey knew better, and the very next week there had been a story on the news about Commander Al when he was an Ensign flying Navy planes in Florida. The kids at school hadn't laughed after that.

There were lots of big words in the magazines, and Mikey didn't understand everything, but he loved the pictures of brave, strong Commander Al in his uniform and his space suit and the funny white clothes that he wore when he had Thanksgiving dinner with the President. There was a little word that he didn't understand, too. The magazines almost always called Commander Al a POW at least once in each article. Mikey didn't know what a _pow_ was, but whatever it was Commander Al was obviously an important one to have it spelled all in big letters like that. Mikey liked that word. It made him think of Batman and Robin. Maybe Commander Al was a superhero, too. Mikey wondered what his secret identity was.

"POW!" Mikey exclaimed, imagining Commander Al in his white spacesuit, hitting the bad guys and saving the world. "Pow! Pow! POW!"

"Mikey, not so loud," Mommy said. She was sitting on the sofa with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She still looked sad.

Suddenly Mikey was scared that Mommy was sick. He remembered last night. She had been happy, laughing and singing all day, until they watched the broadcast from the shuttle. Daddy hadn't wanted to watch it, but Mikey and Geoff had begged, and Mommy had said sharply; "I'm _watching_ it, Dirk, and you can't stop me!" Then Daddy knew he was being a bad boy and he had stopped saying no. Usually Mommy called him Daddy. Dirk was his In Trouble name, the way that Michael was Mikey's.

The broadcast had been really great. First the astronauts had said hello, and then they had read from the Bible. Mikey knew almost all the words they read. He was Presbyterian, like Daddy and Geoff and Dougie and Granmie and Grandpa. Mommy wasn't Presbyterian, she was Cathy-lick, which Grandpa said meant that she didn't know her Bible so good. But Mikey did, and so did the astronauts! Commander Al was the best reader, of course, except that at one part he had trouble sounding out a word and the other astronauts had helped him. Then the astronauts had said hi to their families, and Commander Al had said that all the boys and girls in America were his kids. That made Mikey proud. He was glad that he was Commander Al's kid. Then the most exciting thing of all happened, and the picture fizzled and disappeared! Mikey had thought it was the Moon Men attacking the rocket, but then a man from the TV station had explained that the astronauts were behind the moon now, and that they couldn't make TV when they were behind the moon.

Mommy had started crying then, and she didn't stop even when Mikey explained that the Moon Men weren't attacking the rocket and that the astronauts weren't going to be taken prisoner and locked up in a Moon Dungeon. In fact, that had made Mommy cry more, and Daddy had started to look really mad, even though it was Christmas Eve.

Now she was sitting on the sofa looking very sad. Mikey got up, abandoning his new Tinker-Toys, and walked over to hug her.

"Are you sick, Mommy?" he asked. "Have you got a temperature?"

Mommy hugged him very tightly. "No, baby. No. Mommy hasn't got a temperature."

"Good!" Mikey said. "Because Commander Al is landing on the moon today, and you don't want to miss it because you have to go to the doctor for some medicine!"

Mommy smiled a very small smile. "Commander Al?" she asked.

Mikey nodded vehemently. "Commander Al Claveechee!" he enthused. "He's the best astronaut in the whole world!"

Mommy frowned a little. It wasn't a mad frown, it was a thinking frown. She pulled Mikey up onto her lap. "His name is Calavicci," she said. "Not Claveechee. Calavicci. Try and say that, Mike."

"Calliveechee," Mikey tried.

"Good boy. Try again. _Calavicci_," Mommy coached.

Mikey concentrated really hard. "Cal-ah-vee-chee," he said.

"Good!" Mommy said. "One more time!"

Mikey looked at her anxiously. He wasn't sure if he _could_ say it again. It was an awfully funny name.

"Don't worry about it, sport. You call him whatever you want," Daddy said, coming into the room. "And I thought I said you and _I _were the space buddies, and you should leave Mommy alone about it."

"Why shouldn't he talk to me about space if he wants to?" Mommy asked crossly.

"No reason," Daddy said. "Except _I_ tell him all about the rockets while _you're_ busy giving him Italian lessons."

"I think it's important that he know how to pronounce it!" Mommy snapped.

Daddy looked very angry. Mikey was scared. He didn't like it when Mommy and Daddy fought.

"Well, I say he can call that star jock whatever he wants!" Daddy growled. "Mikey, you go and play with Geoff and no more talking to Mommy about space. She doesn't like it."

"Who says I don't like it?" demanded Mommy.

"Well, you were bawling pretty good last night!"

"Damn it, Dirk—" Mommy stopped abruptly, her hand flying to her mouth. She had never sworn in front of Mikey before. "I'm sorry, baby," she said humbly. "Mommy shouldn't talk like that."

Daddy's anger wasn't the same anymore. Now his face looked like Doctor Octopus, not the Green Goblin. "Liz, forget him. He's not worth thinking about. He's forgotten you: just look at that bimbo he married. More chest than brains. What kind of a guy would hitch up with a dame like that—and then _cheat_ on her?"

"You shut up!" Mommy cried, angry again. "You shut up and leave him alone! You're not half the man he is!"

She was crying again. She stood up, setting Mikey down on the sofa. Daddy tried to hug her.

"Liz…" he said. "Lizzy, come on…"

"No! Just you shut up about him!" she cried. Mikey saw that she was crying, even though she looked mad now, not sad at all. "And stay out of my kitchen: I'm going to make your stupid turkey!"

Then she stormed out of the room.

Daddy stood for a minute, watching the door she had disappeared through. Then he clapped Mikey on the shoulder.

"Hey, sport!" he said, grinning broadly. "Whaddaya say we hit the slopes early today!"

With a crow of excitement, Mikey ran to find his snowpants.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

"Ready?" Jim asked, his voice crackling over the speakers in Al's helmet.

"Never been so ready," Al replied. He activated the vox up to the capsule. "Enterprise, this is Excelsior. Preparing for EVA."

"Acknowledge Excelsior. You have a good stroll, fellas!" Jacobs replied.

Al closed his eyes and opened the hatch.

The ladder landed with a jolt he could feel through his boots. Carefully, his slight frame made unwieldy by the bulk of the suit, he descended. Jim had a camera trained on him as he stepped from the lowest rung onto the firm surface below. He faltered, his knees quivering.

"Al? You okay?" Jim asked.

"Fine… fine…" Al gasped. He couldn't believe it. He just… he couldn't believe it.

He was standing on the moon. Albert Calavicci, the gutter nothing, throwaway from the slums of New York, orphan and reprobate, juvenile delinquent, runaway, petty thief, lockpick and troublemaker, miserable craven wretch and coward and turncoat, drinker of jungle rainwater, eater of befouled rice, whipping boy of North Vietnam, inhabitant of cages and pits and tiny, stinking cells, he, Albert Calavicci, was_ standing on the moon!_

"Good. You think you could move a little to the side so I can join this little expedition?" Jim asked good-naturedly.

Somehow Al managed to move his legs. When he pushed off from the ground, however, he started to float, rising in a gentle arc far higher than he would have stepped on earth. He landed gently four and a half feet from where he had started. Still, he stared at the diamond-studded sky above him and the broad, white landscape before him, unable to focus on anything but the utter wonder of the moment.

His cheeks were wet, and he realized that tears of awe and gratitude were pouring from his eyes. He was here. He had done it. How had he done it? It didn't matter. He was here, on the outer frontier of man's horizons, free as he had never been free before!

He took another step, forcefully this time. He sailed through the one-sixth-G environment. A laugh of pure joy welled up in his throat. "We did it, Jimbo!" he crooned. "We did it!"

"We did it, buddy!" Jim cried in return. "Al, we did it!"

"Fellas?" Clem's voice prompted. "Houston wants to remind you that you gentlemen are due on the air in five minutes."

That snapped Al out of his blissful catatonia. He turned back to help Jim set up the bulky color camera on a tripod next to the LEM. When it was done, Al positioned himself in front of the lens. Then the lieutenant flashed him the a-okay.

"Merry Christmas!" Al cried, knowing that his words were filtering into homes around the world that was hovering in the sky above him. He pointed towards the orb, and Jim adjusted the position of the camera accordingly. "I can see you folks, though those of you in America won't be able to see me for a few hours yet. We're standing here on a plain just north of the Carpenter Crater, and let me tell you, Earth, are you looking good tonight! I'd be proud to step out with a lady like you any night!"

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Their first ten minutes on the surface were occupied by the broadcast, and then they were able to get down to the task of collecting samples, taking off across the rocky landscape in the rover. There were lists of what to look for and the limits to what they would be able to bring back. They drilled for core samples and collected vials of dust. Jim was on the lookout for handsome rocks for his son and Clem's kids. They snapped pictures of each other, some serious and some ridiculous, and tried some clumsy gymnastics and some incredible trick jumps. It was unbelievable what you could do in fractional gravity…

At last they returned to the Excelsior, and loaded her up for the return journey. Then Jim dug out a little tote bag, and they descended again. Al checked the feed on the camera, which Clem subsequently confirmed with Houston. It was time for one last publicity stunt, and this time it was Calavicci's brainchild.

Thrilled by the proposal_, Hillerich and Bradsby_ had provided two custom-made mitts, adapted to fit over the bulky gloves of the spacesuits. Al donned his with some effort, and Jim did the same. Then they spread out from one another, far enough that they weren't going to overshoot their gentle tosses but near enough that they were both still visible to the camera, and started up a game of catch.

Before the eyes of the world, Albert Calavicci the one time Navy all-star became the first man to pitch a baseball on the moon.


	36. Chapter ThirtyFive

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Long after the wine wore off, Elsa lay awake, staring at the ceiling. It had been, without question, the second-worst Christmas of her entire life.

The worst, the very worst had been the first Christmas in America, when she had huddled in her bed in the tiny room she rented twelve blocks from Columbia, crying her nineteen-year-old heart out into the pillow, so lonely that she couldn't even breathe without pain. At home, in Hungary, Christmas had always been a family time. Even when she was small and there were no presents and no pretty lights and very little food, there had still been Mama and Papa and her brothers, and singing and happiness. That first Christmas alone, she had wished that she could die.

After that, it had gotten easier. She had made friends and found company. She had never had a completely solitary holiday since.

Even today, she had roused herself to go back to the old apartment building and join in _Assony_ Badea's celebration. But all that anyone wanted to do was talk about Al and watch the broadcast of the moon landing, and so she had left. Last night's broadcast had been dreadful enough, but she had felt compelled, nonetheless, to watch. It was in part her accomplishment, after all. Had she not worked the simulator for these astronauts? Had she not had input into the wiring of the computers on their craft? Had she not forced the Mission Commander to confront his fears and persevere?

Clearly they could not remain wedded to one another. He loved Elisabeth, and she loved Andrew. Though for a time they had each found comfort in other arms, they could not live forever like this, held together only by lust and pain. What would happen when they began to get old, and her breasts lost their firmness, and his dark hair paled and thinned and receded, and the lust was gone? Then there would only be pain—and resentment.

There was only one way, and to ensure that neither were tempted to cling to an illusion of happiness the division had to be as ugly and as painful as she could make it.

Her mind at last made up, and her course firmly set, Elsa closed her eyes. She was about to drift off into a deep and dreamless sleep when the telephone rang.

Her eyes shot open in the darkness and her hand flew to Andrew's dog tags where they hung about her neck. There was only one reason that anyone should call her at this hour of the morning.

Something had gone wrong with Apollo 20.

The thrill of fear she felt was not for herself. It was not for Al. It was for poor, young Lauren Taggert and her handsome baby boy, whose father was in that capsule three hundred and eighty thousand miles away. Elsa snatched up the bedside receiver.

"Hello, Elsa Orsós," she said hastily.

"Mrs. Calavicci, please?"

She recognized the voice. It belonged to Gene Kranz, who was breaking with tradition to direct the last mission even though it was even-numbered. The reminder that he was in command eased Elsa's empathic anxiety. She remembered the disastrous flight of Apollo 13, when the one force holding all of NASA together was this man's ironclad determination not to lose the astronauts.

"For the time being, yes," Elsa said.

"Can I please speak to Mrs. Calavicci?" Kranz repeated.

Elsa rolled her eyes. "For the time being I am Mrs. Calavicci, though not for any longer than I must be."

There was a beat of bemused silence. Then someone muttered, "Let me!" and there was a crackling on the other end as the phone changed hands.

"Elsa, it's Yardley."

Oh, her absolutely favorite person!

"What is it?" Elsa asked, hiding her annoyance in brisk professionalism. "What has gone wrong and are the men all right?"

"Yes and no," Yardley said.

"Well, are they or are they not?" Elsa demanded.

"Everyone is still alive," Yardley said, in a voice that told Elsa this was his idea of _good_ news. Which, if this was the only positive thing he could say, was not good at all. "We need you down at Mission Control. There's a car on the way and a plane waiting on the runway at the Cape."

Elsa's very being rebelled. "No!" she cried. "No, I am not coming all the way to Texas to play the grieving little woman! You ask too much! If this is the price for remaining with NASA I shall find something else!"

The moment the words were out she felt a pang of desolation. For so long, NASA had been the one thing she cared about, the one thing that had given her reason to wake up in the morning. She had sacrificed love and a life with Andrew for NASA. If she lost it she did not know what she would have left, but what they were demanding of her wasn't right! It wasn't right!

"Damn it, Orsós, I said we need you out here!" Yardley snapped. "Get a kit bag together: that car's going to be there in fifteen minutes. "Maybe we can work this out before Ramona and Jim's wife and the entire Western world wake up and have to be told that something's wrong!"

Elsa's mind arrested itself mid-rant. "_What_?" she breathed. They were not calling the other wives now?

"You heard me! The computers on the LEM blew and they can't dock. You're the best damned programmer we've got out there, and Calavicci seemed to think you were the man for the job. Says if anybody can talk him through resetting those things it's you. The guys out here sure aren't having any luck."

Elsa felt her jaw going slack. They wanted her in her professional capacity. Not because she was Commander Calavicci's ornamental bride, but because she was the best damned programmer in Florida. They needed her at Mission Control to talk the astronauts—not "her husband", but the _astronauts_—through a difficult procedure. Without the computers Al might be able to manually align himself to the capsule, but the clamps would not engage. How stupid! They had reprogrammed the capsule for higher automation, but they had neglected to leave ample fail-safes… Computers were delicate instruments, and you couldn't depend upon them—this was what happened when you farmed out your production contracts and did not show the specs to your own scientists first!

Her mind whirring, taking in the problem and already formulating possible solutions, she acknowledged Yardley and hung up the telephone. She switched on the light and began to dress.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

"Is it just me, Jimbo, or is it hot in here?" Al asked with a nervous laugh, rubbing his left hand up and down his right arm.

"Hot as hell," Jim agreed.

"Excelsior, your orbit's deteriorating again," Clem's voice said. "Houston recommends a three-second burn at half power to compensate."

"Heading?" Jim asked, swallowing hard. They had been up here for the better part of four hours now, since the sparking tremor that had torn through the Lunar Module during the ascent and taken out their computers.

"Seventy-one degrees, two minutes," Clem answered.

"Roger, Enterprise," Jim said. He cupped his hand over his microphone and turned to Al, his young face a mask of anxiety. "This is the fifth one," he said softly. "You—you think maybe we're just gonna keep doing this until we run out of fuel and crash?"

Al forced a smile. " 'Course not, pal. Now c'mon and let's do that burn."

Jim reached for the control stick, but his hands were shaking. The subtle sign of the boy's terror was not lost on Al. He squared his shoulders, trying to ignore the pressure on the back of his neck. "Enterprise, commencing burn in five, four, three…" As he had hoped, Jim's expression hardened with resolve and he took a firm hold on the joystick. "Two, one, burn…"

The module shuddered and Jim manipulated the stick carefully. He had no guidance computers to help him, and had to rely on his own gauging of what constituted seventy-one degrees two minutes in the circle of the control stick's bed. It was imprecise, but it was sure as hell better than thundering down towards that mass of milky rock below them.

"Three! Disengage!" Clem said. Al cut out the thrusters and the LEM began to slow as the moon's gravity pulled upon it.

"You look good, Excelsior," Clem informed them. Something in the tone of his voice made Al look out the narrow triangular porthole. He could see the Enterprise—_just._ Their imprecise burn had moved them farther off target.

"How're we hanging?" Jim asked, his voice tinted with anxiety.

Al grinned. "Couldn't be better!" he said. "You're one heck of a pilot."

"Lauren always said it was too dangerous," Jim said, now taking on a haunted lilt. "She wanted me to give it up and become a commercial pilot instead—"

"Hah! An airborne bus driver? That ain't for you, kid!" Al exclaimed bracingly.

There was a silence. Then a timid voice echoed in the tiny space of the cabin.

"Al?"

"Yeah?"

"I gotta tell you, right now I'm not so sure of that."

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Mission Control was in shambles. It wasn't that these people weren't prepared to cope with a crisis. It was simply that when emergency situations rolled around all attempts at neatness and the niceties of organization flew out the window in favor of frenzied though still tightly controlled attempts at rectifying the situation. There hadn't been a true crisis at NASA for years, not since Thirteen. Even then, all three men had been in a viable space craft. Two of them weren't stranded in a tin foil globe about to fall out of its orbit like the rock-laden sphere that it was.

Elsa strode between two spectacled young men, their ties flapping and their coattails flying as they briefed her in brisk technobabble. Now and then she would deal out a sharp question no less succinct and jargon-riddled than their chatter. Her rich contralto voice inspired confidence to those around her as she strode into the Control Room and moved to Cap Com, where Colonel Simmons was on the wire to the Command Module.

"Well, Clem, looks like the cavalry's arrived!" Simmons said.

"Thank God for that, Houston," Jacobs said. "Put her on and I'll patch through to the LEM."

"Here," Simmons said, indicating the empty chair next to him and handing Elsa a headset. "Anything you say in that microphone while the green light is on goes straight up to our boys, so for God's sake don't tell them we don't think they've got a chance in hell."

"And there is no way to activate those clamps without the computer?" Elsa demanded.

"We've got the men from Grumman working on it," one of the men—one of her colleagues—said. "So far, it's a no."

Elsa scoffed. Leave it to engineers to place too much faith in computers. "All right," she said firmly. "And do we know why they blew?"

Head-shaking all around. Well, that was the place to start, then.

"Houston, this is Excelsior. Do you read?" Al's voice crackled across the intercom.

"I read you, Excelsior," Simmons said. "How's things in the little bird?"

"A little warm, Houston, but otherwise dandy," Al replied.

Elsa frowned. Warm? It couldn't be warm: they were in space! Was he having an attack of claustrophobia?

"That's great, Excelsior," said Simmons. "Say, Al, I've got somebody here who wants to talk to you."

"Elsa? She came?"

Elsa put her hand on the microphone. "Yes, I came," she said.

"Whoa, gorgeous, is it good to hear your voice!" Al cooed.

She wanted to snap at him, especially when the chuckles from the men around her filtered to her ears. But then she thought about how Al must be feeling, dead in the water for seven hours, trapped in an unstable orbit with no computers and no idea what had gone wrong, sitting in a small space that was probably closing in around him. He was making a joke because he was scared and uncomfortable and trying to hide it.

"Now, Excelsior, we have a problem," she said. "You do not have my knowledge, and I do not have your eyes. This means that you will have to tell me, in detail, what you see, and I will have to tell you, in detail, what to do. Do you understand?"

"I copy that, Houston," Al said. "Let's get this show on the road."

Elsa closed her eyes and tried to envision the inside of the simulator, where she had spent so much time duplicating the upgrades that Grumman Aerospace had made to the LEM after the Apollo 18 flight. "To the right of the pilot's seat, there is a panel approximately eighteen inches across, just above the floor," she said. "You need to take the cover off that panel."

"Starboard," Al said.

"What?" Elsa asked.

"In the Navy we say 'starboard', not 'right'. See 'right' also means 'correct', and that can get pretty confusing."

Elsa pursed her lips. This was no time to be funny… but she reminded herself that he was just trying to lighten the mood and don a façade of control. "Take the cover off of that panel," she repeated. "There is an indent behind the lower left-hand corner. It will stick, but if you pry hard enough—"

"Got it!" Al said.

"Good. Now tell me what you see."

"A mess of wires, some circuits—"

"No, truly?" she retorted. "Does there seem to be any physical damage? Is anything loose or burned?"

"Not that I can see," Al said. "Jim?"

"No, ma'am, nothing looks damaged to me," Lieutenant Taggert said.

"There's dozens of those panels," one of the men behind her said. "He's not gonna be able to find the problem."

"Excelsior?" Elsa said. "What happened just before the computers died?"

"There was a jolt and a popping noise. Jim and I kinda figured we got dinged by some space junk," Al answered.

Elsa frowned. "A popping noise?"

"Yeah, like a champagne cork."

"Where did the sound come from?"

"I dunno… aft? Yeah, Jim agrees it had to be aft. My side of the cabin. Why?"

Elsa's mind worked at a frenzied pace. Aft of the copilot… aft of the copilot…

"Excelsior to gorgeous, come in gorgeous," Al said.

"Be quiet!" Elsa snapped. "I'm trying to think!"

"Don't pull a muscle," Al said dryly.

Before she could retort, somebody on the far side of the room stood up.

"Gene, we've got a yellow light on the LEM's coolant pumps!" he cried.

"Coolant pumps?" Kranz cried, turning on the man from Grumman. "_Don't_ tell me the computer regulates their coolant pumps, too!"

A helpless look was his only answer. There was a long silence as the room full of experts took this in.

"Houston? Houston, do you copy?" Al asked. "Elsa, what the hell do you want us to do, here?"

Simmons leaned into the microphone. "Al?" he said. "I'm just going to take you guys off of vox for a minute, okay? Houston out."

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

The moment of jocularity past, Al turned to Jim. He knew his face was going grey, but he couldn't do anything to stop it. "You heard that?" he asked hoarsely.

"They're taking us off of vox?" Jim said. "W-what does that mean?"

Al closed his eyes over his splitting headache. "It means there's something they're not telling us." He floated back to the ship-to-ship. "Enterprise, are you there?" he asked.

"I'm here, buddy," Clem Jacobs said. "What can I do for you?"

"You still on vox?" Al asked.

"Nope. Simmons cut me off just after he did you."

"No idea how we're sitting, here?" Al glanced at Jim, who was biting his lower lip.

"None. You look fine from here."

Damn. So whatever it was it wasn't obvious, but it was bad. Bad enough that Houston didn't want to tall them what was going on. Well, they couldn't just sit here—but on the other hand, what the hell else could they do?

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

"Options, people!" Gene Kranz demanded. "What are we up against, here?"

Elsa pressed her fingertips to her temples, but it just wasn't coming to her. A popping sound aft of the copilot… it meant something, but she could not remember what. Again, she ran through the litany of the procedures that they had tried before her arrival, all ineffectually. The disorder around her was making it difficult to think.

"We keep doing these burns, and they're going to superheat within four hours," one of the engineers said.

"That's not going to be a problem," a medic said.

"Why not?" Gene demanded, frowning.

"They're on their last cylinder. Never mind superheating in four hours: the carbon dioxide in the LEM will reach toxic levels inside of two."

Elsa glanced at the large clock hanging over the wall full of monitors. Nine hours now since they had left the moon…

It hit her abruptly. The air scrubbers were right next to the aft processor, behind the copilot's seat.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Jim unzipped the front of his space suit and scrubbed the back of his neck with his hand. "Damn, Al, it's hot in here!" he gasped.

"Yeah," Al grunted. God, it _was_ hot, and there wasn't enough room in here. He was having trouble breathing. A shudder ran up his spine, and he closed his eyes, trying to fight off the feeling. It was all in his head. It was all in his head. There was plenty of room, there was plenty of air, and—

"Houston to Excelsior, come in Excelsior!" Simmons called. Al dove for the radio.

"Exclesior here. What's the word?" he asked.

"Just dandy, Al, but to be honest everyone down here would feel a lot better if we could get your computers back up," the Colonel said.

"Yeah, well, that makes two of us," Al said.

"Excelsior," Elsa's voice intoned. "Excelsior, open the panel over your oxygen scrub."

"Roger that," Al said, floating towards the appropriate panel. It came off easily. "Now what?"

"To the r—to starboard of the filter, there is a little hatch," Elsa instructed. "Open that."

Al complied. "Damn!" he exclaimed.

Inside was a series of glass bulbs like radio tubes. Four of the seven were blackened.

"Hah! What do you see?" Elsa cried.

Al described it. The revelation was met by a protracted silence.

"Houston?" he said. "Houston, do you copy?"

"I copy," she said. "They tell me there are no spares. They were not supposed to malfunction. _A fene egye meg!_ The men at Grumman are _bena hapsis_!"

"So you're telling me we can't fix it?" Al asked.

"You can, you must be able to," Elsa snapped. "There must be a way. It will only take time to figure it out."

"Okay," Al said, dragging in a deep breath. God, he had such a headache… "Okay. You work on it, Elsa, all right? Time we've got."

Again, silence met him.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Dirk Simon was not a drinking man. A cocktail, maybe. Wine on a special occasion, a gin and tonic when he was out with the guys. When he woke up in the predawn prairie darkness, however, lying on the couch with the knowledge that Liz was in their bed dreaming of her first husband, he realized he needed a drink.

There was some old whiskey in the sideboard, and he poured himself a slug. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Al Calavicci was a ghost he had expected to haunt his marriage forever, but like all ghosts Calavicci was supposed to stay dead—not appear out of nowhere one afternoon in Washington, and refuse to be forgotten from that moment on.

He knew that part of it was envy, because obviously Lizzy still felt something for the man who had once been her husband. Part of it was guilt, because he knew what kind of a hell it must have been for Calavicci to come home and find out that his wife had given up on him. Part of it was regret, because he knew that the man was a nice guy and a genuinely decent human being, and he wished they could be friends. That refugee from Florida, the woman with the three kids, did nothing but talk about how wonderful and kind Calavicci was. From her Dirk had learned some of the sad details of Calavicci's past, filling in the gaps left by the press. If anybody deserved happiness it was a guy like that.

Still, there were moments when Dirk felt selfish enough to wish that he hadn't come home. It was hard when your little boy thought some other man was the greatest—especially when that other man was your wife's ex-husband, a man for whom she still had deep feelings, though she tried to hide it. Dirk had scorned marriage and fatherhood in his youth, but Beth was the one woman for him. He had been so happy with her, so in love, so proud of their sons, and now… now he was genuinely afraid that Calavicci the Wonderful was going to ruin it all.

What would he do if Liz ran out on him and the kids? Or worse yet, if she ran off and _took_ the kids? Nothing was more important to Dirk than his little men. He would die for them. He would kill for them. And he wasn't going to lose them.

But he was so scared. If Liz still loved this astronaut…

Morosely, Dirk switched on the television. It was just about time for the morning news…

"…hovering over the moon, helpless without the guidance computers," the anchor said. "NASA is not releasing details, but sources indicate that it is a race against the clock for our valiant astronauts…"

Dirk flipped the dial, changing the channel. There, too, were images from the Command Module and talk of malfunctioning computers. Dirk felt a jolt of conflicting emotions. He could keep it from Liz. She'd never forgive him…

She had taken Dougie to bed with her. She looked so peaceful lying with her arms curled around her baby. Dirk felt a surge of protective pride. He couldn't lose her. He loved her. God, he loved her.

He bent down and kissed her. She mumbled something, and opened her drowsy eyes.

"Dirk, baby?" she murmured, reaching to wrap one arm around his neck.

"Liz… Something—" He faltered a little. Did he really want her thinking about Calavicci? Worrying about him again? But he had to tell her. "Something's gone wrong with the moon mission."

She was definitely awake now. She disentangled herself from the sleeping child and followed her husband into the den. For a long while she sat silently, staring at the television and taking in the words. Then suddenly she leaned over and rested her head on Dirk's chest, hugging him. He wrapped a shielding arm around her.

"He'll be okay," he said. "If anybody can get out of it, it's him."

"I know," she whispered. "Thank you."

"For what?" he murmured.

"Letting me worry about him," she said. "I do love you, Dirk."

Those simple words eased his soul. "I know, baby. I love you, too."


	37. Chapter ThirtySix

NOTE: Yes, I do know I'm writing out my formulae pseudo-phonetically. I can't subscript, and this looks less ridiculous than full-sized numbers, _a mon avis_.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Al coughed. His lungs ached. It was so hard to breathe. The air was so hot.

He fought it. He had to fight it. It was all in his head. You could lick claustrophobia. Damn it, it had been almost a year since his last attack: why was it happening now?

A choking sound reached his ears. He looked up in surprise. Jim was massaging his chest. "Al?" he gasped. "Al, I… God, is there aspirin in here? My head…"

Al frowned. The kid had a headache too? Claustrophobia wasn't contagious.

Oh. He was psyching Jim into it. The young pilot was seeing his distress and picking up on it. Damn, he had to try harder to fight it. He floated back towards the seats and clapped Jim on the shoulder.

"We'll get you some aspirin just as soon as we're back onboard Enterprise," he said.

"You think we'll make it?" Jim asked anxiously.

"Sure we'll make it," Al said. "We've got the best damned computer programmer in the country down there looking for a way to fix us up. We've got plenty of fuel, plenty of oxygen, and—" A shallow, painful cough cut him off. "How'd you like a drink of water?" he asked.

"That'd be good," Jim croaked.

Al nodded bracingly and took two packets of water out of the cabinet. Thinking better of it, he put one back. They could be up here for a day or two. They would have to conserve their resources. There wasn't any food: they'd only brought four meals, and had polished off the last one before leaving the surface. That'd be rough on the kid. The early days of fasting were just about the toughest, until you were so near starvation that you started chewing hunks of sod to quiet the agonies of your empty belly.

He bobbed over to Jim and handed him the foil baggie. Jim smiled wanly. "Where's yours?" he asked.

Al shrugged. "Too lazy to play with bubbles," he said, draping himself over the pilot's seat. "I'll mooch."

Jim squeezed out two orbs of fluid, sending one towards Al and catching the other in his mouth. Al guided the other down, pecking at it like a fish. Funny how the world worked. Here was a game built around a concept he found most abhorrent—or had until these glory-days in space. He wafted the sphere down between his lips and closed his mouth, relishing the sensation as the cohesion failed under the pressure of his tongue. Catching water wasn't so bad this way! It seemed like every misery had its opposite, a joy proportionate to the wretchedness.

Every misery but one, because deep in his heart he knew that however wonderful Elsa or any other woman was, they would never be proportionate to Beth…

A cough startled him out of his dark thoughts, particularly when he realized it wasn't coming from his throat. Jim had his fist against his mouth. He wheezed as he inhaled. "Damn," he said. "I think I'm coming down with something."

"Yeah?" Al asked, sitting up.

"Yeah. One hell of a cold. I can hardly breathe."

Al's eyes flew to the oxygen gauge. Nope, they were still good for air. Maybe Jim _was_ getting sick. Wouldn't be the first time that an astronaut came down with something in space. Jim was catching a cold, and his projected claustrophobia wasn't helping. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes and tried to suck in a good, deep breath. This time the cough sent him backwards over the chair and bouncing off the wall. Jim let go of the packet of water and launched himself over the pilot's chair after him.

"Al? You too?" he asked.

Al shrugged. "It's nothin'. I'm just… a little uncomfortable, that's all."

"It's pretty cramped in here," Jim allowed.

"Look, kid, it's all in my head, and I'm sorry. Breaking down like this… really, Jim, everything's fine. It's all in my head." Al hugged his abdomen and looked away, his cheeks burning with humiliation.

"But no, I'm feeling weird, too!" Jim protested. "Like I'm gonna pass out or someth—"

He coughed again.

"Tap the O-two gauge," Al gasped. His chest felt like it was being crushed. "Maybe it's stuck?"

Jim rapped the console and shook his head. "Nope. We're good."

"Damn," Al muttered.

"Hold on!" Jim cried. He slammed down the switch for the radio. "Houston, this is Excelsior. What's the status on our C-O-two filter?"

There was a moment of static before Pete Simmons cut in. "Excelsior, this is Houston. Uh…we've got a reading of twelve and rising."

Al cursed vociferously, coughing as he pitched himself towards the console. "What the hell? When were you gonna tell us this?"

"Soon as we had some kind of solution," Simmons said.

"Oh, great!" Al blustered. "Just fantastic. We're suffocating up here, and you don't even bother to tell us?"

"What good would that have done?" Simmons asked. "All that would've meant is you two would've been worrying for the last ninety minutes."

"At least we'd've known what we were up against, you nozzle!" roared Al. The diatribe was too vicious for his poisoned lungs, and he dissolved into a fit of coughing so violent that he somersaulted, crippled from the pain in his chest.

"Look, Al, I wanted to tell you," Pete protested. "But I don't give the orders down here: you know that. Now, just try to stay calm. Elsa's ripping apart the simulator as we speak, trying to find a way to bypass those circuits. We'll get you out of this. In the meantime—"

"In the meantime we can't breathe!" Al ranted. Jim gripped his shoulder as he coughed again.

"Listen, Houston, isn't there some way we can jury-rig a filter or something?" he asked. "I mean, we're two of the hottest minds in this organization. Surely we can figure something out?"

"The boys downstairs are working on that, too. So far, nothing."

"Nobody thought to pack a spare scrubber?" Al wheezed.

"Nobody thought of a lot of things," Pete said dryly. "Lemme tell you, Grumman is mud around here right now. Your little woman's swearing a blue streak that none of us can understand, but man, the sentiment's mighty plain."

"She's not—not my little woman," Al choked out. "She's a damned good scientist, and a—a hell of a programmer."

Pete's tone took on a tinge of annoyance. "Jim, see if you can't settle him down. Smokers. They're always the first to go."

"Cut me some slack," Al groused. "I quit for six years there." Nevertheless, he let Taggert maneuver him into the chair and rested his aching head on its back.

"Just sit tight," Simmons said. "We'll get you out of this."

"Hah!" Al said. "Any other problems we oughta know about?"

There was a long pause. Jim looked anxiously at Al, who was beginning to wonder what wicked fairy his parents had pissed off at his baptism. There were some people in this world who were just cursed, and he was one of them.

"Well," Pete said at last. "The computer was in charge of the coolant pumps. As it sits now, you either keep with the burns every half hour or so and superheat yourselves, or you cut out the compensation, and fall like a rock."

"Thanks," Al said dryly. "Thanks. I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing before, but now I'm positively giddy with optimism."

"Look, we'll get you out of there—"

"Would you stop saying that, please?" asked Al in some annoyance. "Because, really, it's not doing anything for crew morale."

"Uh—Excelsior, they want me in the simulator. I'll just… Winters will be here if you need anything."

"Yeah," Al grunted. "Knock yourself out."

The connection was severed.

"What are we going to do?" Jim asked.

"Nothing we can do," Al replied. "Why don't you try to get some sleep? You make less carbon dioxide when you sleep."

"Really?"

"How the hell would I know? Do I look like a doctor?" Al grabbed the front of Jim's white coverall. "Cough."

The younger man smiled, which was what Al had been hoping for. He closed his eyes and tried again to relegate the pain in his head to some distant part of his mind.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

"What do you mean, you can't do it?" Elsa demanded, watching the astronaut contorting himself into the tiny space, picking at a wire no thicker than a strand of hair.

"Some of us… haven't got fingers… like chicken bones," Simmons grunted. "You think Al can get his hand up here?"

"Maybe. He's still too skinny." She paced the length of the floor. The simulator was all but dismantled, and still she had no real solution. "He has to. If he can reroute that circuit through the switchboard on the other side, perhaps—"

"Hang on, sugar, it's just a _perhaps_?" Simmons demanded. "Because your husband has got about forty minutes of good air left, and that's got to be long enough to rig this thing and dock with Enterprise."

"You think I do not know this?" Elsa snapped. "Why don't you try to do better?"

Elsa did not wish to admit it, but her fear was not solely for Jim Taggert anymore. She couldn't say why the prospect of Al dying frightened her so much. She was divorcing him, after all, and after the divorce he would be as good as dead to her. That was the plan. Still, somehow if Al died she felt that the world would lose something very important. How senseless, to live through all that he had lived through only to die four hundred thousand miles from Earth because four little tubes had failed! It could not be allowed to happen.

Yet, for all her knowledge, she did not know how to stop it.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Thinking was a chore of monumental proportions. Al's vision was blurred and his thoughts thick and muddled. Across the cabin he could see Jim coughing, but somehow the sound wasn't registering.

It was ridiculous. They were sitting here, helpless and indolent, while down on earth somewhere other people were trying to solve their problem for them. That wasn't right. You had to do things for yourself. You had to help yourself, because in the end no one else was going to.

If only you could breathe…

Al almost laughed at his idiocy. Here they were, choking in an oxygen-rich environment because the LEM couldn't clear the toxins, and over in that cupboard by the hatch were two spacesuits. He made the mammoth effort of propelling his aching body towards the cupboard.

"What're you doin'?" Jim asked.

Al coughed miserably, then grinned. "Suit up, sailor!" he said. "Who says we can't wear these?"

Jim laughed. "Damn, Al, you're a genius!"

Getting into the suits took much longer than it should have, because they were clumsy from carbon dioxide poisoning, and had to keep stopping to gasp for air. In the end, though, Al pulled out the two oxygen tanks. He checked the gauges and had to fight back a curse of despair.

His was sitting just above the red, but Jim's read empty. The healthy young Air Force pilot must use more air than he did.

It wasn't a tough decision. It wasn't even really one that he had to think about. He was in command, and a commander's first duty was the safety of his men.

"Turn around and lemme strap you in," he said to Jim. The lieutenant obeyed, and Al took his own oxygen tank and began to affix it to the other man's back. When this was done, Jim did the same for Al.

That first breath was heavenly. Al drew in a deep inhale that seemed to electrify his chest, then exhaled violently, expelling the unfriendly gas that had been strangling him. He raised the shield on his helmet. Jim did the same, and Al could see that the kid was wearing a broad grin of relief.

"All right," Al said, switching on his radio. "Enterprise, patch me through to Houston."

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

"He's embarrassingly intelligent," Gene Kranz said, eyeing the boardroom full of rocket scientists. They nodded. Calavicci's solution was one of those obscenely obvious answers that made fools of geniuses. Solving insoluble problems was this group's forte. When it came to the easy way out, they were at a decided disadvantage.

The Flight Director brought his fist down on the table. "That doesn't let you yahoos off the hook!" he exclaimed. "Calavicci's bought us some time, but those engines are still going to superheat in two hours."

"We've got Orsós working on the computer," an engineer offered. "She isn't having any luck."

"Is there anyone else who knows those circuits?" Gene asked.

"Not as well as she does, unless you count the guys from Grumman."

The black look that Kranz cast him was enough to wither the boldest spirit. "Let's just keep them out of this. How long do we have?"

He was met with an uncomfortable silence. "Maybe an hour and a half, maybe three," someone said. "If they shut down the engines entirely they'll cool down enough to use them again in about five hours."

"In five hours their orbit will have deteriorated beyond recovery," another helpful voice offered.

The supervising flight surgeon didn't seem to be listening to any of this. He was bent low over a pad of paper, scribbling computations.

"Doc?" Gene said. "What now?"

"I think perhaps there's something Calavicci isn't telling us," the physician supplied.

"What? He can't do that!" Kranz blustered

"We did it to him," the doctor said mildly.

Gene closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay, okay. _What_ isn't he telling us?"

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

"You sure this is a good idea?" Jim asked, strapping himself into the copilot's seat.

"Sure," Al said with much more bravado than he felt. Actually, he thought it was suicide, but at least they'd go down fighting.

"Shouldn't we at least ask Houston? I mean, their samples…"

"Our lives," Al said. "Look, kid, you're sitting on an almost empty oxygen tank. The air outside of that bubblehead of yours isn't breathable. And we either fall from the sky like a harbinger of doom, or we superheat and burn. You think this is a reasonable gamble, or not?"

"Sure," Jim said, trying to sound brave. "Sure, I guess so."

"Well, good. Excelsior to Enterprise."

"I read you, Al. What's the word?" Clem asked.

"_Ha isten is úgy akarja_," Al said.

"_Huh_?"

"It's Hungarian," Al told him. "Means _God willing_."

Jim turned awkwardly to look at him. "I thought you didn't believe in God."

"Believe? Hell, sure I believe in God: I'm a cradle Catholic," Al said. "I just don't have much faith in Him, that's all."

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

"What the hell are they doing?" Kranz asked, snatching the Cap Com headset away from Winters. "Calavicci, what the hell are you doing?"

"No good," the operator said. "Enterprise has cut your feed to the LEM."

"Enterprise! What's going on up there? We've got an unauthorized burn…"

"Yeah, Al's taxiing her into range for EVA," Jacobs's voice said.

"What? Why? When were you going to tell us this?"

"After we got them inside," Jacobs offered.

Gene smacked the console so that Winters' coffee shuddered. "What we have on this mission is a chronic communication problem!"

"The way I see it, that goes both ways, Houston," said Jacobs. "Calavicci didn't want to tell you till it was done 'cause they're abandoning the LEM."

"He thinks he and Taggert can just float over and hop into the capsule?" Kranz clarified.

"You got a better idea?" Jacobs countered.

Gene scanned the room. One of the EVA experts shrugged helplessly. "It could work," he said.

"Hell, yes, Enterprise, they should abandon the damned capsule!" Gene cried. "Priority one is getting those men home safely!"

Unexpectedly, Calavicci's voice crackled in, wry and vaguely mocking. "Glad to hear your heart's in the right place, chief!" he said.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Al looked gravely at his crewmate.

"The LEM wasn't designed for EVA," he said. "You know what that means?"

"No depressurization sequence," Jim said.

"Right. Even if there was it'd probably be computer-operated, but that's beside the point. No depressurization. So…"

"So when we open that hatch everything's gonna get sucked out."

"_Blown_ out, yeah," Al said. "And we can't. Which means we're going to hold onto these cupboard doors."

"But the pressure of the jettisoning air'll propel us away from Enterprise," Jim said.

"Yeah, and that's why the second we've got a vacuum in here we're bailing," Al said. "This is gonna take some fancy footwork. You up to it?"

"I have a choice?" Jim asked skeptically.

"Nope, sure don't!" Al said brightly. Then something occurred to him. "The film!"

"_What_?" Jim said.

"The film and the tapes from the cameras." Al bobbed over to the cupboard and pulled out the tote that had held the baseball mitts, left behind to adorn the little shrine to their passage. He began to fill it with the rolls of film they had shot on the surface. "We risked our lives, and I'm not coming home empty-handed," he said fiercely.

Jim scrambled to help him. Al stole a surreptitious glance at the kid's oxygen gauge. Still in the red. He wondered how much air was left in those things when the gauge read empty. There had to be a safety margin, right?

A thought struck him abruptly. "Where're the rocks we picked up for the kids?" he asked.

Jim gave him a blank look.

"The rocks. The rocks we picked for Jeremy and Clem's kids," Al said.

"Oh!" Jim cried. "Here… why?"

Al took the package and shoved it in on top of the photographic evidence, then zipped the tote closed. "NASA's got plenty of samples, but where else is your little guy going to get a rock his dad picked out for him on the moon?" he asked.

Jim made a tiny, choking sound deep in his throat. "You know, Al," he confessed; "I didn't get that scholarship fund set up for Jeremy."

That wasn't good. The kid didn't think they could do it. Al reached out one insulated hand to grip an equally padded shoulder.

"You listen to me, kid," he said viciously; "you're going to set up that fund just as soon as we get back to Florida—I'll contribute the first grand myself! That boy'll be able to go to Harvard if he wants to!"

"But what if we don't get back?" Jim asked, his voice wavering. "Mission Control thinks we're crazy, nothing like this has ever been done before, everything's gone wrong right from the start of the mission, and—"

Al shook him. "You listen to me! You listen to me!" he cried. "Sometimes you have to do something crazy! Sometimes you have to do something stupid! And lemme tell you, kid, there are times when nobody's going to help you! Maybe they want to, but for whatever reason they can't, and that's just when you've gotta be craziest! Hell, I know what we're trying's insane, but we've gotta try! We can't just sit here and suffocate! You hear me, mister?"

"Y-yes, sir!" Jim shouted back. "Yes, sir! We can do this!"

"Damned right!" Al cried. "We can do it!" He switched off his radio in haste, because his lips tripped out; "Or we'll die trying."

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

At last Clem gave word that he was depressurized and ready to receive them. Jim took a firm hold of one of the stainless steel handles of the equipment cupboards, gripping it with both hands. Al wrapped his left arm around another. It was still thin enough, despite the bulk of the suit, that this was a viable position. He had the tote bag shoved up on that shoulder. His temples were throbbing. He didn't have much air left…

"Ready?" Al asked, ashamed of the hoarseness of his voice.

"Ready," Jim replied.

Then Al reached out and blew the hatch.

It was unlike anything he had ever felt before, as if the universe was rushing by and leaving him plastered against the wall like a fly on a windshield. The pain of his body pulling on his arms was terrible, but Al was accustomed to such pain. He was grateful for the protection of the suit as the detritus of their voyage swept past and out of the capsule. He could hear Jim cry out in surprise and agony, and then suddenly the pressure was gone. Al released his hold on the wall, grabbed Jim's hand, and hauled them both out of the module.

For a moment Al was overcome by the wonder of hovering in absolute nothingness, a naked and vulnerable white speck in a vast black sky. Nothing could touch him. Nothing could hurt him. There was nothing… nothing…

"Al? Jim? Any time now…"

Clem's voice brought Al back to reality, and he realized the flaw in the plan. Excelsior was speeding away behind them, propelled by the force of the equalization of pressure. Below them, maybe twenty feet away, was Enterprise. They were all but stationary. He hadn't pushed off of the LEM with nearly enough force to close the gap.

Jim saw the problem, too.

"We're not moving!" he hissed. "Al—Clem—_we're not moving_!"

Al released his hold on the LEM pilot and tried to dive, as if he could swim through the vacuum. All he did was bob ridiculously in place, his muscles useless without something to offer inertia or resistance.

"What are we going to do? What are we going to do?" Jim exclaimed, his voice raised in panic.

Al coughed, gasping for air. His tank was empty. They were out of time. They were out of time.

"Kid," he choked out. "Kid, you think you can push off of me hard enough to get down to her?"

"But if I push off you, you'll go the other way!" Jim cried.

"You've got a wife and a kid, family, friends, a bright future ahead of you," Al said. "All I've got is a head full of terrors and a soon-to-be ex. If one of us has to die out here, it's better if it's me."

"No!" Jim declared valiantly. Stupidly. "Either we both make it, or we both don't!"

Al sucked in his absolute last breath of viable air. "Damn it, Lieutenant, that's an order!" he roared.

"B-but—" Jim sobbed.

"An order!" Al wheezed. "Now!"

Jim didn't move. Angered and driven by desperation, Al kicked the boy in the stomach with all the force he could muster. Jim floated down, and he shot away. He couldn't breathe. Black stars filled his vision as Jim's fist closed around a bar on the outside of Enterprise.

The thought that his problems were finally over flashed briefly through his mind before oblivion surged up to swallow him.


	38. Chapter ThirtySeven

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN 

It was happening again. Oh, God, they were doing it again!

Al felt a thrill of despair as someone kicked him in the ribs, driving from his lungs what little air he had been able to suck in when they had finally lifted his head out of the trough. He couldn't even sputter to expel the fluid rattling in his bronchia, burning the tender respiratory tissue and causing horrific pain. He tried to resist as they hauled him across the clearing towards the crude wooden gallows that were never used for anything as merciful as a lynching. He was too weak. Above him he heard the delighted laughter of his captors. It was the laughter of spoiled and wicked-minded children who had realized that it was time to play with their favorite toy.

Rough hands pulled at his fatigues, wresting his body out of its coarse cotton sheath, intent upon robbing him of even this meager protection. He tried to curse at them, to writhe away from the debasing hands. You had to resist. You had to fight back. You had to try to stop them from stripping you down. Every second you kept the soiled, sweat-soaked rags on your body was one more second of delay before the horrors started afresh. There were all sorts of unthinkably hideous things they couldn't do to you until you were naked.

But Al was too weak to struggle. He could feel the cloth peeling away from his arms. Then slowly down the torso, over the hips… No! No!

He thrashed madly, trying to resist, fighting with every ounce of strength. If only, if only he could get a deep breath. He felt like he was still drowning.

The clothes were gone. With a wail of despair, Al threw up his hands to shield his head as a black snake cut from an old Jeep tire came down across his bare chest, further derailing his efforts to breathe.

Couldn't they leave him alone? God, _God_, why couldn't they leave him alone? They always came for him… always him…

"No! No!" he moaned, his throat grating as if it had been burned as horribly as his back. His lungs wheezed, protesting this abuse. As another blow robbed him yet again of breath, Al felt consciousness slipping away… slipping away into delirium, a fevered hallucination where nothing weighed upon his aching limbs, and strong, supportive arms held him while firm hands ministered to his battered body. A desperate dream of insanity, in which a kind, grieving voice was speaking in English—in that half-forgotten language of his innocent youth—and begging him to wake up, to please wake up, to be okay, to please, please be okay, Al, please, please, Al, wake up.

Al didn't want to open his eyes. He had to cling to this fantasy, this specter dreamed up by his tortured brain. The illusion that someone cared, that someone wanted to stop the hurt. That someone was willing to hold him, vile and hideous though he was, and try to take the pain away. Even the idea that there was someone out there who didn't want to destroy him, to break him… even that was an unheard-of treasure, to be retained as long as possible.

It wouldn't be long. Any second now the next blow would fall, and that wasn't even the real stuff. No, the real stuff was going to be much worse. Nothing in this hell could ever be so mild as a skin-flaying beating.

Hell. That was it. He wasn't in Vietnam: he was in Hell. He remembered now. The LEM. Jim Taggert, the empty oxygen tank. Nothing to push off of… out of air… and now Calavicci was finally in Hell where he belonged. Satan had come at last to claim his long-coveted prize…

Al began to cough, his battered chest heaving and his throat burning with the effort of dilating to accommodate the sudden influx of air.

"Thank God! Thank God!" a tearful voice cried. The arms tightened their hold frantically, as if afraid that if they relaxed even for a moment, Al would vanish into the netherworld.

"Houston, I think he's coming 'round!" a twanging Texas drawl exclaimed.

"Al? Al, please wake up!"

He recognized that voice… Al's muddled brain groped for the name. Jack… no, Jim… Jim… "Jim?" he croaked.

There was a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh. "Yeah! God, Al, are you okay?"

It took an enormous effort, but Al opened his eyes. There, blurry and indistinct above him, was the face of Jim Taggert, oddly disproportionate above the sealant ring of his spacesuit.

"I…" Al had to stop as a wave of unbelievable nausea washed over him. He clamped his mouth closed against the efflux of acid, screwing his eyes shut in an attempt not to vomit.

A plastic bag was placed over his lips.

"It's okay," Jim said. "Go ahead."

Al shook his head ferociously. Not if he could help it. He choked back the burning fluid and raised a clumsy hand to bat the bag away. He was having a hard enough time breathing without that. The effort expended was enormous, and he let himself go limp. His legs were floating; Jim had his arm clamped firmly around his torso.

"God, Al, you scared the hell out of us," Jim scolded, trying not to cry any more than he already had. "How do you feel?"

"You ever used your head as the clapper in a church bell?" Al rasped. God, he felt awful. There was pain pulsing through his temples and his throat and mouth were raw.

Jim let out a tiny laugh that smacked of ill-suppressed hysteria. With every breath, the world was starting to come more and more into focus. Al blinked heavily. His limbs ached as if he had run a full marathon, or spent the afternoon in the blazing sun, strung up by his ankles, with his arms spread-eagled to the sides.

Clem Jacobs bobbed over and peered down at him. He, too, was still in his spacesuit, having stopped only to remove gloves and helmet. "Hey, Commander," he said. "Doc told me I should ask you: what year is it?"

"Nineteen seventy-six," Al answered, his vocal cords snagging on the words.

Clem nodded. "Who's the current president?"

"Gerald Ford."

"And where are you?"

Al frowned thoughtfully. "Hell," he finally said.

Jim and Clem exchanged a worried look. Al decided to elucidate.

" 'Cause they say there're more Texans in Hell than there are in Texas," he finished, with his best attempt at a wicked grin.

The two men laughed out of sheer relief.

"You gonna tell me who turned down my bid for the farm?" Al asked. He was starting to tire of Jim's hold on his chest, but the kid looked like he needed reassurances that he was still there. Al remembered enough of what had happened to know what the kid must be feeling—what _he _would have been feeling had their places been reversed. So he endured the indignity of his current position while his crew exchanged another communicative look.

"Soon's Jim got inside we hooked him up to the EVA tether and sent him out after you," Clem said.

Al shook his head. "That tether's fifteen, maybe twenty feet long."

"And there's a spare," Clem pointed out. "You water rats aren't the only ones who know how to tie a knot."

"Maybe not," Al said, coughing shallowly; "but we tie them best."

"Only 'cause you can't do anything else," Clem countered.

"When you can rope 'em, what else do you need?" Al retorted, hoarsely salacious. "I would've thought a farm boy like you would know that."

He coughed again, gripping his arms against the fit, and then realized abruptly that there had been something to the memories of being stripped down. He frowned.

"What the hell?" he muttered.

Jim colored a little. "You… uh… you were out for six or seven minutes by the time we got this baby pressurized again," he said. "We had to clean you up a little."

Al felt himself flushing with shame. He tried to pull away, but Jim wouldn't let go. He seized Al with a bracing shudder.

"You saved my life," he said through clenched teeth. "You saved my life and you almost died. Don't you dare think like that. Don't you dare."

"How d'you know what I'm thinking?" Al griped viciously.

" 'Cause I'd be thinking the same thing, but don't you dare!" Jim reiterated fiercely.

Clem returned, though Al hadn't seen him move off. He had the spare jumpsuit in hand. Jim gripped Al tightly for a fraction of a second, then let him float into a sitting position. With the help of the other astronauts, Al got into the garment, then sat meekly in mid-air while Clem got his feet into some socks. He ran a hand through his hair and frowned again.

"Why'm I wet up top?" he asked, puzzled.

Jim laughed a little. "You ralphed in your helmet, too," he said. "Am I ever glad we were stuck in the LEM for as long as we were!"

Clem sniggered. Al had to laugh, too. After all, they were all alive, the Command Module was in perfect working order, and this was shaping up to be one hell of an adventure in just about every way possible. "Guess I should be, too," he said ruefully, pushing himself gently towards the cabinet where the paper wipes were kept.

"That ain't all," Jim said. Al looked up from unfolding the damp square, wondering what fresh humiliation he was about to learn of. Jim pointed to an object hovering near the hatch. "Through all that you hung on to the film!"

There was a moment of silence as the absurdity struck home. This time, the relieved laughter of all three astronauts seemed to rock the capsule.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Elsa stared at the screen charting the Command Module's course back to Earth. She was furious. All of her knowledge, all those years of training and experience, and she had been unable to save the astronauts. Had it not been for Al's courageous stupidity, there would be one man in that capsule now, and two dead ones floating in a decaying orbit around the moon.

There was a cry from the entryway to the Command Center. "Elsa! Oh, Elsa!"

Elsa turned as Lauren Taggert rushed towards her, Jeremy bouncing on her hip. Suddenly the two women were embracing around the little boy. "He saved him! Al saved Jim!" Lauren sobbed. "Oh, Elsa, he could have been killed! He could have been killed!"

Elsa didn't ask who she was referring to. It didn't matter anyway: she was right both ways. Lauren's hold on Jeremy was slipping, and Elsa awkwardly tried to support the boy.

"Allow me, ma'am," a deep, calm voice intoned. Gene Kranz moved in with firm, confident hands and extracted the baby from his precarious position. He jiggled the little boy, grinning. "Hey, fella," he said. "You've got a hero for a daddy. Saved his commander's life today, yes he did."

"No, no, Al saved _his_ life!" Lauren wailed. "If it hadn't been for him—oh, _Elsa_!"

"Yeah, well, Jim returned the favor," Kranz said. "Sounds like everybody's going to be okay. Thanks to Calavicci's quick thinking."

"Can I talk to Jim?" Lauren asked. "They said if I wanted to talk to Jim, I would have to—"

Two Marines bolted into the room, skidding to a halt when they saw the Mission Director holding the baby.

"Sir! I'm sorry, sir!" one of them panted. "We couldn't stop her, sir! She just—"

"It's all right, soldier," Kranz said, chucking Jeremy under the chin and grinning enormously when the gesture elicited a smile.

"But sir, it's against regulations—"

"And I'm in command here, which means I can veto regulations," Kranz told him. "Now, Mrs. Taggert has had one hell—excuse me, ma'am, one _heck_ of a scare, and now she's the wife of a hero. If she wants to talk to her husband, I don't see any problem with that."

Elsa reflected that three missions ago the stern man would have taken a rather different view of things. Perhaps the nostalgia of commanding his last mission was going to his head. Or perhaps he was charmed by the beautiful blue-eyed boy. Jeremy was such a sweet little boy, the kind one could cuddle forever…

She shook her head. What kind of a thought was that, when they were in the middle of a crisis? Or rather at the end of one.

Kranz navigated Lauren over to Cap Com and spoke quietly to Simmons. The corporal grinned.

"Houston to Enterprise, come in Enterprise," he said.

"Enterprise here. What's up, Houston?" Clem Jacobs responded.

"Oh, this and that," Simmons said. "How's our brave boy in khaki?"

"Fine, fine," Jacobs said. "A little green around the gills for a sailor, but that's only to be expected. And he tells us he's got one mother of a headache."

"I'm not surprised," muttered the indignant flight surgeon. He had not yet forgiven Al for failing to inform him of the levels in the oxygen tanks that everyone had thought the men were such geniuses to don.

"Well, you tell him Doc thinks he's a damned fool," Simmons said. "Say, is our brash young lieutenant handy? I've got somebody here who wants to talk to him."

"Hang on for a second on that one, Houston," Jacobs said. There was a silence, and then Jim came on the radio.

"Go ahead, Pete. Who's going to bawl me out now?" he asked.

"I wouldn't be too flippant about it," Simmons warned. Then he got up and escorted Lauren into his chair, fixing her up with a headset. "Just talk into the microphone. He can hear you fine."

She glanced nervously at Elsa, who mustered a firm and encouraging nod. Lauren leaned forward. "Jim?" she said.

"Lauren! Lauren, honey! God, I thought I'd never hear your voice again!" Jim cried.

It was the wrong thing to say. Elsa could see Lauren's throat palpitate. She moved in to grip the younger woman's hand. Lauren managed a small, glassy-eyed smile of gratitude. "Jim, are you really all right?" she asked. "Really, truly?"

He laughed. "Really, truly, darling, I'm fine! Never been better!" Jim said. "I'm just sorry you had to have a scare like that, honey."

"I was so worried!"

"You shouldn't worry," Jim said firmly. "There ain't a thing that can hurt us while Al's around. Lauren, you shoulda seen him! Didn't even hesitate—my God, honey, he could have died…"

"Jim? Jim, are you all right?" Lauren asked anxiously.

"Darling, I said I'm fine," he reiterated.

"And—and Al? Is he okay?"

Jim's voice broke as he spoke. "I think he's going to be okay," he said. "Thank God."

Elsa turned away from the overjoyed young bride, unable to deal with the jumble of emotions warring within her. Divorce, she reminded herself. As if this whole marriage had never happened.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Clem brought Al a packet of water and helped him open it when his fingers fumbled clumsily with the seal. Across the capsule, Jim was winding down his conversation with Lauren.

"You really feeling okay?" Clem asked.

"Fine," Al fibbed. Actually, he knew he had felt worse, but not for the better part of three years. An orb of water burst in his mouth, and he coughed a little. "Just fine. That was some quick thinking you did," he said.

"Not as quick as yours," Clem countered.

"Hah," Al said flatly. "I wax suicidal, and suddenly I'm a hero?"

"You saved both your lives," the other man pointed out. "Jim couldn't have got you back to the capsule if you hadn't got him there first."

"Go stuff a duck," Al muttered, popping another dose of fluid into his mouth. The taste of vomit still wasn't dissipating, and neither was the headache. He coughed again. Clem felt his forehead.

"Maybe you should get some sleep," he suggested diplomatically.

"I said I'm fine. I'll sleep on my off watch," Al snapped. He sailed over to the seats and pulled himself down, proceeding to stir the oxygen tanks.

Jim glanced at him and frowned. "Doesn't anyone else want to talk to us?" he asked.

"I don't know…" Lauren said. "Elsa, do you want to talk to Al?"

There was a pause.

"No," Lauren says; "no, no one else. I love you, Jim. You be careful."

"Always am, darling. I love you too." Jim sat back as Simmons came back onto Cap Com.

"That's a brave little lady you've got, Jimbo," he said.

"She's a treasure," Jim said. He twisted in his seat and put a hand on Al's arm. "She's probably just busy," he reasoned.

Al chuckled ruefully. As if he cared.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

The earth was enormous in the window. Al stared at the expanse of blue glory, and rammed his fist against his mouth to muffle the sound of the cough he just couldn't shake. It almost felt like there was something rattling around in there, and though he wouldn't admit it, it hurt like hell.

Jim bobbed over with a package of freeze-dried strawberries. "Al, Houston says if you don't eat something—"

"They'll what?" Al asked sardonically. "Abort the mission and bring me home in disgrace?"

Jim looked hurt. "Al, come on. You gotta eat. You haven't eaten anything since we left the moon."

"I'm not hungry," Al said flippantly. He turned back to the window. "Isn't she beautiful, Jim? She looks so perfect from up here. So peaceful, so clean…"

"We'll be home tomorrow," Jim said, his voice taking on a dreamy tone. "I'm gonna see Lauren and my little guy tomorrow. I have you to thank for that, you know."

"Don't romanticize it, Jimbo," Al said. "What I did out there was stupid. I could have killed you just as easily."

"But you didn't," Jim said. "You saved my life."

"And you saved mine," Al countered. "So we're even. So get over it."

Jim shook his head. "It's not the same thing. I wasn't in any danger. _You_…"

Al shrugged off the hand that moved to grip his shoulder. "Kid, I said get over it. We're even. Wouldn't be right for you to risk your life for me. The idea that one life is worth just as much as any other is for Utilitarians and used-car salesmen."

Jim stared at him for a moment, his eyes betraying deep hurt. Not wanting to watch the suffering his hard words were causing, Al smirked.

"Gimme those," he said, grabbing the package of food. "Freeze dried strawberries are just about as addictive as cocaine."

Jim smiled a little. "Just don't try to snort them," he said.

Al shrugged. "Might be fun to try in zero-G."


	39. Chapter ThirtyEight

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Elsa wrathfully tossed down the spanner and reached for the needle-nosed pliers. She threw herself back onto the floor of the LEMS. She had torn it apart in her frantic attempt to rewire the computers, and now she was determined to put it back together before she left Mission Control. Of course, she could have left the job to the technicians and programmers actually employed here, but that would mean a horde of men muttering about the arrogant female who had invaded their simulator, destroyed it, and left the mess.

She wasn't going to let them wag their cruel, gossiping, male chauvinistic tongues about her! Bad enough that everyone was frowning at her in disapproval for declining to talk to Al after Lauren was done talking to her husband. The fools had expected her to turn into a wailing, wet-eyed nymph doting upon her poor, poor, _brave_ husband who had been through _so much_. She was disgusted by the very idea. Why should she moan over Al's brush with death? It was enough that he had survived, and the space program would be spared the disgrace of losing its mascot.

The realization that she was being watched startled Elsa into a sitting position, and she barked her head on the underside of the console. With a sharp oath in her native tongue, she turned to see John Yardley standing inside the simulator.

"What's this I hear about you staying here?" he demanded.

"I made the mess, I should clean it up," Elsa replied sourly. Strange how a blow to the head, however harmless, instantly made you angry and defensive. "The simulator needs to be mended."

"Enterprise is splashing down today," Yardley said. "We need you at the Cape with the other women to welcome the astronauts home."

Elsa stiffened. _The other women_. She tossed her head in indignation. "I did not see them off," she said. "Why should I welcome them home?"

"You mean you're not going?" the fool asked.

"I mean I'm not going," she affirmed.

"But the public expects it!" he protested.

"Expects it?" Elsa retorted. "Sure, yes, I bet they expect it! Expect me to fondle his poor head and kiss him and weep over him, because he was fool enough to almost get himself and Taggert killed!"

"You saying it's his fault you couldn't get the computers up?" Yardley demanded. "What your husband did was damned brave! I don't know a man who'd do what he did. He saved Taggert's life!"

"Well, good, so Lauren can weep for her own husband and rejoice at his survival!" Elsa said. "Let the papers photograph her for a change, and tell stories about how she is a Soviet spy!"

"You're still sore about that?" Yardley cried in disbelief.

"Not as sore as I am that he sleeps with whores on the covers of supermarket rags!" she cried.

"Hey, that was a libelous allegation—" Yardley began, defending the other man as well might one expect.

"Hah! So how did the pictures get taken, the night he told me he was out with a friend from school?" she said. "And to whom does he want to bring lilies? Never has he given me flowers: he speaks to another woman from space! Well, let his harlot caress his cheeks and call him a hero. I am staying here: I have work to do."

She turned irately back to her labors.

"Damn it, woman!" Yardley exclaimed. "I don't care if he's slept with half of Florida! The man is a national hero, and you're going to be there to welcome him home!"

She stood up, undaunted by the thirteen-inch height difference, and strode towards Yardley. "I am not NASA's prostitute," she said. "I will not debase myself, not even to stay. He has made his bed: let him lie in it alone! When I go back to Florida it will be to find a lawyer to strip him of everything I can! Until then, I fix the simulator."

She threw herself back on the floor, and set about her work as if the Associate Administrator was no longer there. Soon enough he was gone, and she was allowed the luxury of a guilt-ridden sigh.

Why could she not make up her mind? One minute she hated him. The next she was washing his trembling body and soothing his terror-riddled mind. Or she was killing herself in an attempt to save him. Or she could not even face the idea of hearing his voice. Why was he not Andrew? If only, if only he were Andrew.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

The silent stillness of the ionosphere was broken by the passage of the capsule. The broad cone of alloy and mineral tore with sundering force through the first fringes of the atmosphere as it succumbed to the siren-song of gravity. So into the mesosphere, where the friction of displaced gasses began to heat the shell of the metallic invader. The tiles of the heat shield smoothing the brutality of re-entry began to glow. Then the resistance-born warmth at last reached sufficient magnitude and the oxygen dragging on the man-made meteor ignited. Flames caressed the vase of the vessel—an inferno of glory, the Earth's fire show, with which she welcomed her homecoming children. Then with treble screams, scarlet-striped birds shot out, spreading their domed wings with an air of fierce protection. Gravity would not claim his lawful victims today.

Reigned in by its silk guardians, the capsule jerked momentarily upwards, then resumed its descent, gently now and slowing with every passing second. At last the unseasonably calm glass of the Atlantic was shattered into fragments as Enterprise tore through it. There was a cloud of steam as the near-freezing water boiled upon contact with the impossible heat of the capsule-bottom. Then there was a gurgling as the vessel upended itself, and at last silence, with only the parachutes left to float gently down upon the water.

Hanging upside-down with the ocean outside their portholes, the astronauts were rendered speechless. It was not due entirely to the G-forces. There was also the wonder. For Al, the agony in his chest warred with the exhilarated somersaults his stomach was doing. It had been six minutes of heat and glory and danger greater than any he had ever experienced—and far, far more elating. He felt a new energy, as if he would never be weary again. He wanted to crow, to weep, and to scream all at once. Instead he sat in silence, heaving painful breaths and trying to enshrine this magnificent moment forever in his consciousness.

There was a strange sucking sound as the capsule righted itself, and Jim let out a laugh.

"Gravity!" he cried. "Don't know when I've felt so heavy!"

Al looked at his comrades. They were red-faced and sweating, and he knew he must look much the same. "Well, men, we're back," he said. "Houston, this is Enterprise. We're all wet."

"I copy, Enterprise," Simmons said. "Looks like the last you'll be hearing from me. Good luck, fellas. You're going to need it. Houston over and out."

"I like that!" Al said. "Doesn't even tell us what we're up against. You guys getting the feeling that maybe Mission Control likes to keep us a little off-balance?"

"Just a little," Jacobs said.

Al smirked and flipped on vox. "Thank you for flying Lunar Airlines," he intoned, in a deep commercial-pilot voice. "We are now at the terminal, and at this time it is safe to remove your seatbelts. To ensure a smooth disembarking, our stewardesses will begin by unloading those passengers seated in the back of the plane. If you require assistance or additional time to disembark, please wait until all other passengers have proceeded towards the terminal."

There was a banging on the window, and they looked up to see a pair of frogmen waving and saluting. Al returned the gesture and started to undo his harness. The other men did the same.

The hatch came off with a bang and a hiss of escaping air, and Jim climbed out and onto the platform that would raise him to the chopper hovering above. Al moved towards the exit, his legs unsteady under his no-longer weightless body. He coughed as the sharp salt of the air irritated his burning lungs. The fingers of his right hand did a quick push-up against his chest, dissipating the worst of the discomfort, and he gripped the edges of the capsule, leaning out over the bobbing waters. A cheer went up, audible even over the roar of the helicopter. Al looked up at the men manning the aircraft, and waved, following it up with another salute. Two of the men—by their uniforms, his brother Naval officers—reached down to help Jim into the chopper, clapping him on the back and laughing, probably teasing him about being Air Force.

"Now you guys are going to know how I feel at the Cape," Al warned Clem.

"Naw," Jacobs said. "We'll just feel all the more superior when we find out _you're_ the best the Navy has to offer!"

"That's a good one, cowboy," Al said. "Best the Navy has to offer indeed."

The platform had been lowered again, and he hopped up onto the edge of the gateway back to Earth. Then his footing faltered, and the next thing he knew the icy chill of the water expelled the air from his lungs as he plunged into the sea.

For a second he felt weightless again, until he realized with terror that he was sinking. Al flailed his arms, trying to coordinate his motions, but all he could feel was the palpitations in his chest and the pervasive cold seeping through the jumpsuit and wetting him to the skin. He couldn't move properly, as his mind protested against the lack of air and his subconscious began to invade the present with images best buried.

Some final bastion of sanity told him to kick his feet, and by a miracle he didn't understand he discovered that they weren't chained together. As he moved his legs in a flutter-kick that grew stronger with each pass, his arms remembered the proper motions, and swept around to propel him upwards. The water curled around him, streaming over his body as the flames had streamed over the descending capsule. The sopping socks were dragged from his feet. His head ached. His lungs were throbbing and he bit the soft flesh behind his lip in a mad attempt to keep his mouth shut.

When the iron grips closed on each arm he could not help gasping in alarm. That was when he sucked in a lungful of water. As the frogmen pulled him to the surface he began to cough violently, his body spasming as the men locked his arms around the base of the platform's railing. Two more swam up to grab his legs, and suddenly he was lying on the metal surface, coughing out more fluid than air.

"Are you all right, sir?" someone asked. Al couldn't answer: he was too busy dying. "Sir? Commander, are you all right?"

His eyes met those of an anxious-looking diver, peering over the platform with his mouthpiece in his hand. Still choking, Al gave him the thumbs-up. Then the platform was raised, and he was hauled into the chopper, wheezing and fighting for a clear breath of air.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

To Jim and Clem, the air craft carrier they touched down on was just the same as any other. The sight of the pennant fluttering near the Stars and Stripes struck terror and astonishment into Al's heart, however, and his stomach did a somersault in no way related to the sea water he had ingested. This was Admiral Holloway's flagship. They were being picked up by Admiral Holloway's flagship.

The Chief of Naval Operations himself was there to greet them as they stepped out of and away from the chopper. Al tried to look proud and heroic, but he was barefoot and soaked to the skin, his hair crusted in salt and standing in every direction in ridiculous curls, his knees were quivering weakly, and his chest hurt worse than ever. Nevertheless Admiral Holloway saluted crisply, and he reciprocated. He was dimly aware of the snapping of shutters nearby. Cameras.

"As one captain of an Enterprise to another," Holloway said; "welcome aboard, Commander. You're a credit to the Navy and to your country."

"Sir, I hope so, sir," Al said, trying not to cough.

Next, Holloway said something about true heroism and self-sacrifice, and Al demurred politely. The Admiral turned to the two Air Force men with words of congratulations. Then he had a First Lieutenant show the three men below decks, where they could shower and change before their interviews with the man from Life magazine. The rest of the press would have to wait until after the astronauts had been reunited with their families.

Al washed himself almost frantically. It had been too long since his last shower, and the feeling of unclean skin was intolerable. Donning the blue NASA flight suit was an enormous relief, and the ball cap provided ample disguise for his disobedient curls. All three astronauts were led up to the Admiral's mess, where the crew from Life interrogated them about every detail of the mission. Jim told the story about saving the film and the rocks for the kids, which Al could tell from the gleeful looks on the journalists' faces would be national folklore by nightfall. Neither Jim nor Clem divulged the true ignominy of Al's return to the Command Module, and for that he was desperately grateful. Bad enough that it had happened. Worse still that his fellows had witnessed it. But if anyone else ever learned of it the shame would be unbearable.

Almost as bad, though, was the way the other two were building him up as some kind of hero. He'd just done what he had to to save the kid's life, 'cause even in Hell he knew it would've haunted him if he'd let Jim die out there.

When the ordeal of the interview was at last over, they were escorted to a larger helicopter, invested with the task of returning them to the Cape. By now Al was exhausted, and his forehead seemed to radiate heat. He leaned back in the seat next to Jim, closing his eyes and trying to steel himself for the upcoming ordeal.

It was every bit as insane as he had expected it to be. The crowd gathered to greet them was absolutely ridiculous. There were reporters and television crews, politicians, professionals, the entire staff of Kennedy and Canaveral combined. Ramona and her kids ran out to greet Clem, who gave his wife a long, impassioned kiss before hoisting Daphne onto his shoulders and waving enormously at the crowd. Weeping for joy, Lauren clung to Jim as if she would never let him go, while Jeremy bounced in his father's arm, crooning with excitement. Al occupied himself with waving and making gestures of victory, and spouting quotable words of pride and encouragement and patriotism for the benefit of the press, trying all the while not to scan the crowd for the one face he knew wouldn't be there.

Then suddenly Lauren Taggert was hugging him, too, sobbing as she thanked him, over and over again, for saving Jim, reiterating almost as often as her husband was wont to that he could have been killed! He could have died!

Al let her embrace him, returning the hug with more force than he meant to. He needed the feel of a soft, feminine body, and he realized with a pang of unwarranted desolation that Elsa wasn't here to greet him.

He didn't know why that hurt so much.


	40. Chapter ThirtyNine

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

If Albert Calavicci had been a national hero for his valiant and silent struggle in the forgotten depths of the jungles of Vietnam, and his role in saving the last two Apollo missions, then for his part in the very-nearly-disastrous flight of Apollo 20 the media deified him. Before the capsule even splashed down the whole world knew the story. The spaceman who had kept the mission from being aborted in its first minutes had gone on to execute an entertaining and hugely successful landing, and then endured a wholesale failure of the LEM's computers. Even the foremost experts NASA had to offer couldn't help. So Calavicci had taken matters into his own hands, choosing life over equipment, and removing himself and his pilot from the useless spacecraft. Somehow they were not quite in position, and that! Ah! That was when Calavicci had performed his most courageous act of self-sacrifice and unfettered daring, and offered to lay down his life so that his fellow astronaut could live! Such intelligence! Such strength of will! Such bravery! And despite the crisis Commander Calavicci had brought home every photograph and video shot on the moon, _and_ the rocks chosen especially for the children of his crew!

The day after splashdown there were photo shoots and press conferences, and the astronauts had to tell the story over and over again. Al had even given a brief account in Spanish for the benefit of the minority audience, a display on which the media had positively doted.

Then it was up to Washington to meet with the President and accept Congress's superlative congratulations and be stuck so full of medals that by the end of it Al felt like a pincushion who had seen much better days. Jim and Clem were by no means forgotten, but for some reason the lion's share of the honor was heaped on Commander Calavicci. The President had ribbons to bestow upon him, and then there were various trinkets from Congress. Of course the Navy had to put in their two bits' worth, and the Air Force had medals too. There were speeches and photographs, interviews and all manner of accolades.

Washington had been one big cocktail party after that, as the astronauts went from function to function, schmoozing with Congressmen and parochial politicians on the make. The last night was the best: a private supper at the White House, just the President, the three astronauts, Admiral Holloway and his counterpart from the Air Force while Lauren and Ramona dined with the First Lady. Once everyone got over the initial awkwardness and past the fact that a rancher's son from Texas, a North Dakota prairie boy, and a gutter rat from one of the worst neighborhoods in New York were eating at the same table as three of the most powerful men in the world, it was actually a delightful meal—five seasoned soldiers and one moderately clumsy civilian supping with camaraderie and good humor. The worst part of the evening was when it came time to say goodnight, and Mrs. Ford asked why Elsa had been unable to attend. Holloway had made the catch, which was good, because Al had no explanation. Apparently Elsa was down with a nasty winter bug, and her physician didn't want her out of his sight. Well, it sounded good, anyway.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Al closed the door of the private suite on the nineteenth floor of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, leaning back against it and coughing a thick, phlegmy cough. Good old New York. There had been a ticker-tape parade that morning, ending in Central Park, where Al and the other two—but really mostly Al—had received public congratulations from the Secretary General of the United Nations, several ambassadors, and Pierre Trudeau, the buoyant, curly-haired Prime Minister of Canada. Then the mayor had presented Al, "our native son", with the keys to the city—a ritual Al had thought had gone out of vogue with steam engines, hoop skirts, and stovepipe hats. Be that as it may, gracious acceptance was clearly what was expected, and so that was what he delivered. It was easier that way.

Spending the entire day in the open air, as cold and damp as any New York winter he remembered, wearing only his dress uniform, had done nothing to help his chest, however. Tired beyond words, Al stripped carefully down and went into the bathroom for a scalding shower.

He emerged red as a lobster and tender as an overdone potato, and collapsed into bed. The luxuriant flannel sheets caressed his bare skin like the hands of a woman—

He scowled. Damn it, he wished Elsa were here! He really coulda used a warm body to cuddle tonight. He couldn't say why the idea of shacking up with another girl was taboo—there had certainly been more than enough of them swooning over his uniform and hollering his name today—but it was. He was married to Elsa, even if she was chomping at the bit to divorce him, and he just couldn't pick up a doll off a street corner… though there seemed to be plenty of willing girls begging to volunteer.

It wasn't fair. Why the hell did he have to be tied down by a sham of a marriage?

Seeking catharsis, he flicked on the television, but the only channel that wasn't playing news reports about the mission or Commander Calavicci's victory tour (always the press played up Jim and Clem as sidekicks) was running _The Boy With The Green Hair_—a movie that always made Al feel strangely desolate and empty. That was exactly what he didn't need, so he shut down the idiot box. The light was next, but he tossed in the darkness, unable to quiet his rambling mind or settle his weary body. He had to fight to remain in bed, quelling the urge to get out and find a patch of hard floor to curl up on. Presently the cough started up again, rattling in his lungs and hurting him dreadfully.

His feet found the floor and his hands scoped out his suitcase. Inside was a bottle of Scotch—a gift from Gerald. He groped for a glass on the table by the window and poured. The liquor burned its way down his throat, banishing the cough and relaxing his taught muscles. Another glass, and his mind started to let go of its death grip on reality. He was halfway through the third when he found his way back to bed. The sheets were even more inviting now, and as he drained the glass and began to drift towards slumber he reflected that it was almost as good as having a woman to caress and curl drowsily around.

Almost.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

After two more days in New York the astronauts were flown out to North Dakota, to put on a similar show in Bismarck. The Governor had a special citation for each of them, and a very long-winded speech that smacked of an impending election campaign. From there the convoy from NASA, a comet followed by a tail of reporters, made their way to Jim's hometown, a little place called Ellendale near the South Dakota border.

This quickly became Al's favorite stop of the whole ridiculous tour. To begin, instead of holing up in isolation in a luxury hotel, with a convenient lobby to house the carrion from press-houses across the country, he was invited to avail himself of the second spare bedroom at Jim's parents' place. Mr. and Mrs. Taggert were wonderful people, even if they did share that same bad habit of gushing over the way that Al had _saved Jim's life_, as if he had had any choice in the matter. Jim's sisters, both of whom lived in town, were more circumspect in that regard, and instead doted copiously on Jeremy. Taggert's nieces and nephews were all old enough to ask endless questions, but they were much more interested in interrogating him about the lunar rover and playing baseball on the moon than they were in the fool's rescue he had performed. That suited Al just fine.

The first day there was yet another media circus, albeit a smaller one. The press were not quite so enamored of this hometown welcome as they had been of New York's. That was ironic, because Ellendale had obviously loved little Jimmy Taggert a whole lot more than the Big Apple had ever even bothered to think about ragged young Al Calavicci. Though not so grand as the cosmopolitan performance, the parade arranged for the astronauts here was much more personable. Maybe it was the fact that the cheering crowds assembled on the sidewalks were braving sub-zero temperatures to do so. Maybe it was the way they would call Jim by name or cry out their praise of Jeremy, who was scarcely more than a bundle of plush in his blue snowsuit and matching scarf. Maybe it was the members of the high school football team, decked out in parkas and mittens, tossing lollipops at the kids watching the spectacle. Whatever the case, it was obvious that Jim was and always had been a well-known and well-loved member of the community.

The bitter prairie cold wasn't Al's cup of tea. The dry winter air irritated his lungs even worse than the damp in New York had, but the weather was not without its perks. That first night at the Taggerts', standing in the light and the warmth with a mug of hot apple cider, watching out the window while the press waded around in the knee-deep snow had been a positively religious experience!

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Al awoke the next morning coughing up a lung. A globule of thick, green mucous came up in his hand and with a shudder of revulsion he hurried down the hall to the bathroom to wash. Even after all this time, the feeling of bodily fluids on his skin had him instantly back in the jungle, coated in layer upon layer of accrued filthy, most but not all his own.

A shower and a shave helped chase away the phantoms, and eased the cough a little. Then Al dressed in his warmest clothes—probably still inadequate for these draconian climes. The three men had a day's furlough, granted so that Jim could celebrate a belated Christmas with his family… on the condition that he let the guys from Life come in at three o'clock to snap some photos. Al thought that was despicable, but Jim didn't seem to mind. Then again, Jim hadn't had his marriage ripped apart at the seams by the press, had he?

Al was going to hit the streets, maybe check out the library or catch a movie at the playhouse. More likely he would find a quiet bar and nurse his chest cold. He knew when he wasn't wanted.

He got no further than the kitchen when he met his first protest. It came in the form of Lauren, who said that he _had_ to stay and celebrate with them.

"After all!" she cried, turning on the waterworks in that absolutely innocent way that only she could. "After all, we wouldn't even _have_ Jim this Christmas if… if… if…"

Her distress had brought her mother-in-law into the fray, and shortly after Jim's sisters had materialized out of nowhere. Last of all came the menfolk, but the verdict remained the same. Al decided at last that, having spent the last year pretending for NASA and the press, he was entitled to pretend a little for himself. He could pretend that these wonderful people really wanted him, and he could have a proper holiday.

The food was unbelievable in quantity, quality and variety. Then there were presents—Jeremy and his cousins cleaned up, all right. Al didn't remember having even _seen_ as many toys in his childhood as these kids received in one day. With typical first-Christmas finesse, Jeremy spent most of the day playing with a hologram-printed gift bag.

The adults exchanged presents on a more modest scale: chocolates and socks and bath oils. Al sat on the floor in the corner by the tree, hugging his knees with one arm and helping Jim's eldest nephew build his Lego set with the other hand, feeling progressively more out of place as the others began to reminisce about Christmases past. Finally, Jim clapped his hands.

"Ma!" he said. "Time for the Christmas slippers!"

The kids cheered, and the adults applauded the idea. Jeremy, who clearly had no idea what was going on, laughed and put the gift bag over his round little head. Al tried to muster a smile, even though he was about as with it as the baby.

"Every Christmas Ma makes everybody a pair of slippers," Jim explained. "Has as long as I can remember."

"Ah," Al said, still trying to smile enthusiastically. "Wonderful!"

Mrs. Taggert was circulating with brightly-wrapped, squishy packages, stating the name of each person as she set one in their lap. "For Thomas. Melanie. Dora. Megan. Mark. Wendy. Oscar. Christina. Jim. _Jeremy!_ Robby. Lauren. Chester… and Al!"

She set a package on top of his knees. Al stared at it. Around him, the others were ripping theirs open, laughing and comparing colors. With careful fingers, he unwrapped the little parcel, drawing out a pair of knitted Phentex slippers in Naval blue and gold. He stared at them, this very personal, familial gift from this group of total strangers, and bit the inside of his cheek so that he wouldn't start crying.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

The next day, there was a potluck lunch and assembly at the local arena, cleared out for this specific purpose and bedecked with streamers and banners. The astronauts were the guests of honor, speeched at by important citizens and revered by the crowds of locals. Through an arrangement between Jim's elementary school and the boys from Public Relations, the crew of Apollo 20 were signing photographs for and visiting with kids from town and the surrounding rural communities. Al liked this enormously: it was so much better than sweet-talking politicians and reliving the jettison for corporate barons. You could make a kid's day just by telling him how fast a Saturn V rocket could go. Surrounded by fresh, smiling young faces he reflected that the only group he'd _rather_ be worshipped by was that knot of gorgeous young ladies laughing over in the corner.

When the party was winding down, and almost the last of the townsfolk had gone home—except for the clean-up crews—Al leaned back in his folding chair and grinned enormously.

"This is quite the town, kid," he told Jim.

"Sure is," Jim agreed, dandling his little boy on his knee.

"Too damned cold," Clem said, yawning and stretching his limbs.

Al chuckled at the undeniable truth of _that_ statement.

"Actually, summers around here are scorchers," a voice behind them said. "California has nothing on the Dakotas there."

Al turned, and grinned. "Dirk Simon!" he exclaimed. "How are you? I had a letter from Ana before I went up… she says you've been a great help, and—"

He stopped. There was a kind of blank look of pain in the lawyer's eyes, and Dirk was making every effort not to look directly at him. Then Al noticed the kid standing next to him. A boy, maybe six or seven years old, with sandy hair and the most beautiful hazel eyes Al had seen in a long time.

"Who's this?" Al asked pleasantly, smiling at the kid, who was staring up at him as if he was the Second Coming. Staring up at him with deep, magnificent hazel eyes that made him want to take the little boy in his arms and embrace him, then give him the moon and the stars and anything else he wanted.

"This is Mikey," Dirk said. "My oldest boy. He's a bit of an expert on your mission, and when I heard you—all three of you—were stopping by so close… I figured he might like to come out and see you. You know, in person." He gave the boy a tiny, prompting push. "Right, sport?"

Mikey nodded, his eyes growing still wider as Al, dress uniform and all, got down on one knee and extended a companionable hand.

"Pleased to meet you, Mikey," he said, shaking hands. "I'm Al."

"I know!" Mikey gasped, pointing from one astronaut to the next as he said their names. "Al, Jim, Clem! You went to the moon!"

The others laughed, but Al nodded solemnly. "So we did, son. I hear you're an expert on the mission."

"Y-yes, sir! Yes sir!" Mikey exclaimed.

"Mikey was hoping you'd sign a picture for him," Dirk said, staring adamantly at the rafters. "So he could paste it on the back of his door."

An awed, frightened look came across the boy's face. Al smiled reassuringly. "Sure, we can do that," he said. "How 'bout it, fellas?"

Soon enough, an autographed photo of the crew found its way into the child's hands. He stared at it soberly, holding it at arms length as if he could hardly believe it was there. The exquisite hazel eyes were glassy with amazement.

"Well, how'd you like a little something?" Al asked. He didn't know why he was doing this. What he had in his breast pocket, what he had been carrying with him since the splashdown, what he was now about to give to this kid he'd just met, had been meant to be his souvenir of his voyage. His private commemorative artefact of this chapter in his life. But this kid… he wanted to see those eyes smile. They called out to his soul, and he had to see them smile. No price was too high. He dug in his pocket and drew out a sliver of whitish stone.

Mikey put out his hand instinctively, and took it. "You know what that is?" Al asked, as the little fist closed around it.

"It's a moon rock!" Mikey cried, gazing at it in wonder.

"That's right. Picked it up just for you," Al told him.

"Just for me?" Mikey echoed.

"Just for Mikey Simon," Al agreed.

There was a silence.

"What do you say, Mike?" Dirk asked.

The dam burst and a radiant smile spread across the small face—the kind of smile Al had had rare enough occasion to form during his own childhood. He didn't know jack about kids, but he could tell that this moment something magical was happening for that little boy. The hazel eyes lit up like diamonds, and a pang of bittersweet exultation that Al didn't understand ripped through his chest. When the kid dove forward to hug him, he accepted the embrace gladly, wrapping his arms around the boy.

"Thank you, thank you, Commander Al!" he exclaimed.

"Sure, no problem, sport," Al said.

Then Mikey pulled away, retreating to his father's side with the moon rock in one fist, and the photograph in the other. Al got to his feet as Dirk held out his hand.

"Thanks," he said flatly. "That means a lot to the kid."

Al grinned enormously and shook the lawyer's hand. "Sure," he said. "Least I could do."


	41. Chapter Forty

CHAPTER FORTY

All the long drive home, Mikey sat in silence, clutching the photograph as if it would disappear if he didn't keep it in a death-grip. That suited Dirk just fine. He loved his little guy, and would do anything and everything to keep him happy. He had heard people say that fatherhood meant sacrifices, but he had never really believed it until now. Today he had done something because Mikey wanted it. Because it was a dream Mikey deserved to have realized. Even though it had been bitterly hard to face that man again, knowing all that he did, even though this might destroy his marriage, Dirk had done it because it was right that Mikey be allowed to be a little kid. All kids had to have a hero, and it was a dad's job to bring that hero to life. For his own father, that had meant endless journeys to the movie theater to catch the latest Humphrey Boggart film. Dirk would have been happier if Mikey had fixed on a movie star, too, or some sports hero. Heck, even Nixon would have been an improvement. But no, Mikey had become enamored of "Commander Al", Mommy's ex-husband, the undead specter who was never going to stop haunting the Simon household.

Dirk told himself fiercely that there could be no regretting what he'd done. If seeing that picture and hearing Mikey's story sent Liz running straight into Calavicci's arms, then that had to be so. Even if she took the boys—oh, God, surely he couldn't have done anything to deserve losing his boys!—Dirk promised himself he wouldn't regret taking Mikey to meet the astronauts. Even if he became an absentee father (but no court would deny him visitation rights! He hadn't done anything wrong!) at least Mikey would remember forever the day his dad had made this dream come true. Wouldn't he?

When they reached the house, Mikey went charging inside. Liz was waiting by the door, her hands on her hips.

"Now are you going to tell me where you took my son?" she demanded.

Dirk felt his throat close with pain and terror. He hadn't told her because he'd been afraid that then she would want to come. How would she react when she found out who had passed so near to her doorstep? He shook his head. "Mikey'll tell you," he said hoarsely. From the living room, he could hear the boy chattering enthusiastically to his brother.

Liz gave him a look of thinly-veiled anger, and brushed past him to find her son. Dirk stood for a moment, frozen, until an exclamation of "Mommy! Mom! I met Commander Al! I met Commander Al!" rang out. Unable to stay to hear the rest, Dirk moved down the hallway to the bedroom where Dougie was already asleep.

He stood over the crib, his hands clenching the side as he stared down at his little baby boy. Doug had his thumb in his mouth, and was slumbering serenely, blissfully unaware that his father had just done something he had vowed never to do, and given Michael leave to display a photograph of the man his mother would never forget. Dirk leaned forward, hanging his head over the sleeping child. He couldn't go out there and face Liz, listening as Mikey sang the praises of her first husband. Calavicci's generous gesture and extravagant gift spoke of a truly altruistic and selfless nature that made Dirk feel like more of a heel than ever; how would it look to Liz?

He heard the sounds of the bedtime ritual in the hallway, Mikey still jabbering elatedly to his mother and brother. Now and then Elizabeth's beautiful voice filtered through, filled with pleasure and delight. Listening to their happy chatter, Dirk felt a fist closing on his heart. Alone and forgotten, he stood there, living his worst nightmare. The nightmare in which Lizzy left him and went running back to the man she had finally come to accept as dead, only to have him resurface in glory after five years of marriage.

A single hot tear ran down the side of his face and landed on Dougie's cheek.

"He's still holding the rock." The sweet voice that embodied Dirk's very reason for existence floated up behind him. "I finally convinced him to let me put the picture on the dresser. We'll have to get a frame for it, or he'll love it to ribbons in no time."

"Right," Dirk said flatly. "I'll pick one up first thing in the morning."

"That was wonderful, what you did for Mikey," Liz continued, coming closer. "He's going to be talking about it for months. I can't believe Al gave him a moon rock."

It took every ounce of courage Dirk possessed, but he said it. "Yeah, well, Calavicci's a great guy."

Gentle hands found his shoulders, and the fragrance of her breath caressed his ear. "So are you," she murmured.

Dirk stiffened. "You still love him?"

Liz kissed him on the neck. "I… I loved him very much," she said, faltering only a little. "But I love you, and I love our boys. This is my life, Dirk. I'm happy here. I just wish I knew Al was happy where he was."

Dirk thought about the extravagant smile and the never-ending wellspring of humor. He turned in Lizzy's arms, twining his around her waist. "I've never seen such a happy officer," he confided. "He's got a good life."

The sigh of joy that she freed from her throat made him want to weep with relief. "I'm so glad," Liz murmured, kissing him. "I'm so glad."

It was the kiss that did it. And the kids were in bed. Dirk drew her closer to him, running a suggestive hand up her back.

"What do you say, Lizzy?" he cooed. "You think these boys could use a sister?"

MWMWMWMWMWMWMMWMWMWMWMWM 

Elsa had no idea what to do with the summons her attorney had drawn up, so she went into the den and left it on Al's pillow. It seemed a terribly impersonal way to go about it, and a cruel homecoming for a returning hero, but on the other hand, this was a divorce, and not meant to be intimate or kind. The thought of "her husband, the returning hero" filled Elsa with indignation and disgust.

Her two weeks at Mission Control had been filled with badly camouflaged references to the state of her marriage. Though still a secret from the outside world, it was a well-known fact throughout NASA. Everyone seemed to side with Al. They all thought Elsa should do her wifely duty and run to his arms, that she should don a twill suit and a pillbox hat and wave graciously to the populous gathered to worship him. That she should wriggle into some sleazy cocktail dress and hang upon his arm at reception after reception… the man who had been caught in the act of shacking up with a blonde, and greeted one of his prostitutes from space!

Well, they would be sorely disappointed. She had not even mentioned Al, much less praised him, since the end of the LEM crisis. And as soon as ever she could she would drop him like the loathsome worm that he was. She had already engaged an attorney and set a date for the preliminary arraignment. It was the announcement of this that she now set on the pillow.

She looked around the den, once a sanctuary in which Al had watched his ball games and read his books. Now it looked like a corner of a refugee shelter, in which some displaced wretch was trying to construct a semblance of normalcy. Al had made up the sofa as a bed, with a fitted sheet around the cushions and the covers tucked in neatly and impeccably. The television set served as a shelf, with his crisply pressed trousers in two stacks on top of it. He kept his socks and undergarments in the drawer of the end table. And he had nailed a shower curtain rod to the east and west walls near the back of the windowless room, which served the purpose of a closet, holding the tidy, carefully sorted row of shirts and his summer dress uniform.

The sight angered her. There was a perfectly good bedroom across the hall from her upstairs. There was no reason he could not sleep there. Once again he was trying to make her feel guilty, striking out with emotional warfare because he was incapable of fighting in any other way. Well, it would not work. If he wanted to be wretched and uncomfortable, let him. No one had suffered anything in his four months of obstinacy but himself.

She left the room, closing the door behind her. He wouldn't win her over with remorse!

Regardless of her anger, Elsa had secretly been following the coverage of the celebratory tour. As disgusted as she was by the fuss being tossed up over what should have been just one more routine trip to the moon, and as much as she hated the posturing, lecherous mission commander, she could not deny that Al played his part very well. Very well indeed. He was never without a quotable utterance. His smile was unflappable. In his dress blues he was dark and handsome. Even in the broadcast of the parade in New York, when from his posture in the open car and the haggard lines at the corners of his mouth Elsa could tell he was in a great deal of discomfort (probably half frozen, without a coat as he was), he had kept a radiant grin on his face.

Her favorite photo, though, was the one from Life, showing him and Admiral Holloway, the Chief of Naval Operations, saluting one another. By rights Al should have looked like a drowned rat. He had fallen into the sea, he was soaked to the skin and unshod, his hair wild and tousled. Yet there was such dignity in his stance and in his stoic expression. His bare feet were aligned beautifully, and his hand raised to his temple in a crisp gesture of honor and respect. Even had he been naked and filthy, instead of just wet, he would have cut an impressive figure.

Elsa pushed the thought from her mind in annoyance. He wasn't worth the air he breathed, and she was going to divorce him.

He wouldn't be back for a couple of days yet. Troubled by the emptiness of the vast house, Elsa went to her room to change, digging into the front of her blouse for Andrew's dog tags, which she wore continuously now. She would head into Orlando, maybe see a movie. There was a new one she had been meaning to see: a film about the breaking of the Watergate scandal. One of the reporters was played by Robert Redford.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

There was no denying it: Al Calavicci was sick.

In space, he had tried to write it off as the after-effects of oxygen deprivation. After splashdown he'd been pretty sure he'd just sucked in a little sea water. Then he'd told himself that it was nothing more than a cold that had settled in his chest.

Now, standing on his lawn with his luggage on the sidewalk, his arms folded over his abdomen to brace himself against the force and the pain of a violent coughing jag, he had to admit that he'd caught a real doozie. He could feel the phlegm popping and bubbling in his bronchia, but no matter how hard he coughed he couldn't clear it out—though occasionally he did bring up gobs of thick, unmistakably green goo. This latest stage had started just after they'd arrived in Texas for a repeat of the performances in New York and North Dakota. It had been a bitter disappointment, since Al had really wanted to believe it was the weather that was causing the cough.

His lungs burned now whenever he tried to breathe. His ribs and diaphragm ached constantly from the endless hacking. His throat was raw and dry. His head was sore and strangely light. Adding insult to injury, he was _still _cold.

At last the fit passed and he was able to draw shallow, painful breaths. He picked up his bags cautiously, wary of triggering another episode. He made his way to the door, leaning wearily against the wall as he dug in his jacket pocket for the house key. Once inside, with the door safely bolted behind him, he stumbled through the darkness to the den. He slept here so as to avoid disturbing Elsa when he awoke with nightmares. The last thing she needed was reminders of how unstable her estranged husband was.

Al sighed as he set down his bags. There was laundry to be done, and he really should eat something—nothing had passed his lips since he'd pecked listlessly at yesterday's supper—but he was far too tired. A thick, gurgling cough bubbled up into his windpipe and he scrubbed at his watery eyes.

The worst thing about being sick was remembering other times, some when he was cared for, some when he was not. The year he turned four he had spent three weeks in bed with pertussis. He didn't remember that bout with whooping cough very clearly, except that he hadn't had anything to do, and wasn't allowed out of the room, lest he should infect the baby. He had a dim recollection of the copy of Tom Sawyer from which Momma had read once daily. Bored and sick and miserable, he had taken the book into bed with him and stared and stared at the little black markings on the page. Slowly the words of the well-known tale had started to come back to him, and before he knew it he was equating the words to the markings. He must have read the book four times during those long weeks.

In the orphanage, when you were sick, the sisters brought you to the infirmary, where you had a bed all to yourself. The mattresses were thicker than those on the cots in the dormitories, and the blankets warmer. The sisters would fuss over you and bathe your face, and bring you orange juice to drink and grapes to eat. Sometimes Al had thought that the best times were when you were sick.

The first year he and Beth had been married, he had come down with some kind of nasty stomach bug that had got him out of sea duty for the better part of a fortnight. During the days of crisis Beth had been his own personal nurse, bathing his head and holding him while he puked his guts out. When he moved into convalescence, they had spent the whole of their days in bed… together…

Al wished Beth was here now as he wrestled with his clothing, which was clinging to his body and making him feel absolutely filthy. Like that time when he'd been bowled over by malaria… raving with delirium, shaking with fever. He'd been almost as cold under the steaming jungle sun as he was now in the muggy darkness of his Florida home. Sobbing and begging for water, the laughter of the V.C. adding a nightmarish quality to his pyretic hallucinations…

He was dimly aware that his thoughts were muddled, flitting in and out, circling fruitlessly around one another. He should shower. He was sweaty and filthy, vile. Anyway, a shower would warm him up, and the hot steam was the only thing that would ease the torture of the coughs. But he was exhausted beyond all telling, and wouldn't be able to make it to the bathroom, much less actually wash…

With a shudder that brought on another heavy cough, Al fell towards the sofa. There was a stiff envelope on his pillow. He brushed it away in annoyance. His sore head sank into the softness, and he forced his quivering body under the blankets. It was so cold in here. Damn it, it was so cold in here.

Shivering violently, he drew the covers around himself like a cocoon, and coughed wretchedly as his leaden eyes fell closed and his body succumbed to the sleep it so desperately needed.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Elsa left the movie early. That nurse at Balboa Hospital all those years ago had told her the truth: Andrew _had_ had a smile just like Robert Redford's. Dark eyes and dark hair and olive skin, but the smile… the smile was the same. The political posturing and journalistic maneuvering, too, had struck too close to home tonight, and so she could not even lose herself in the plot.

Thinking about Andrew as she drove the Ferrari home filled her with unbearable sorrow. The thought of her love, her only love, dying in despair and agony, with only strangers to help him… that thought was intolerable. She should have been there, to care for him, to give him water when he called for it, to speak to him, to help him hold on, be strong…

Her face was wet with tears as she pulled up to the curb and ascended to the house. She missed him. She loved him. She wanted him. Anyone else… anyone else would always be second-best. Her road would lead always back to that cottage by the sea, and the arms of the only man she would ever really love.

She moved in the darkness past the parlor and the den, and into the kitchen. There was a bottle of Italian wine in the refrigerator. She loved Italian wine: two years had been sufficient to forge that affinity. She poured herself a glass, swirling it and admiring it by the dim light of the streetlamps filtering through the windows. As she took her first sip her heart skipped a beat.

There was a sound.

She froze. Had someone broken into the house?

The sound rang out again. Coughing. A thick, wet, painful cough. Elsa held her breath as the fit continued. The noise was coming from the den.

Setting down the wine, she moved in that direction, warily switching on the hallway light as she went. She paused at the closed door of Al's makeshift bedroom. There was no doubt where the sound was coming from now. Carefully, carefully she opened the door. A sliver of light expanded into a rectangle, illuminating the sofa and the figure huddled upon it. His face was paper-white, save for two brilliant spots of fever, one on each cheek. He was shivering as the paroxysms shook him, and Elsa could hear painful wheezes and miserable attempts to breathe through the coughing. One hand worked on the blankets, clenching and un-clenching desperately. Al turned his head away from the light and mumbled something miserably, still asleep.

Elsa regarded him for a moment, unconscious and helpless and obviously ill. Another cough was followed by a tormented gurgle that failed to obtain sufficient air for its victim. No others followed, because the bare chest with the still-too-prominent ribs began to spasm as Al's body struggled to draw in the oxygen it needed to function. Then there was a strangled gasp, and he lay still again, his waxy lips forming alien syllables.

"_Nuoc,_" he sobbed deliriously. "_Nuoc, dông tù. Dông tù, Titi, dông tù nuoc…_"

There was another pitiful cough, and a moan of despair. Then he buried his face against the back of the sofa and subsisted into febrile trembling.

On the floor was the envelope from her attorney, unopened. Casually cast aside. Hardening her heart against the picture of wretchedness before her, Elsa turned her back and closed the door to the den. She had no compassion for him tonight. He deserved none.


	42. Chapter FortyOne

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Elsa turned from her stomach to her back for the third time. His door was closed and so was hers. She was in the master bedroom overlooking the back yard. He was two levels below her, near the front of the house. Yet still, absurdly, she could hear him coughing. She could hear, too, the abysmal silences during which she knew he was fighting for air.

In those silences, when she might have been drifting off to sleep, she worried. He didn't sound well at all. Was it bronchitis? Pneumonia? It could be aspiration pneumonia. He had fallen into the sea: he could easily have inhaled some water, fostering the perfect environment for infection. Even before, in space, Jacobs had reported Al had vomited into his helmet. If he had breathed in the acid and had that rattling around, scorching his delicate respiratory tissues, he could be desperately ill, not merely uncomfortable.

Another cough tore through her peace of mind. He was certainly more than merely uncomfortable. She knew enough about the pathology of respiratory disease to know that.

Still she hesitated. It seemed too much like the duty of a good little wife, to fuss over and fondle her lord and husband. They had warned her against it, the girls in California. First they bed you, then they wed you, and then you are their slave. If she got up from her bed to tend to him as a dutiful woman should, would she not perpetuate this destructive stereotype? She was not Al Calavicci's humble handmaiden, to wait upon him whenever he called. It hurt her credibility. It meant loss of the respect she had worked so hard to earn. Who knew what his attorney might make of it during the divorce proceedings?

She fought to banish the worry. He was no concern of hers. If NASA had not mandated that they keep up an illusion of marriage he would not even be in the house now. He would be in some apartment, alone while he coughed and muttered in his sleep. Or shacked up in a seedy motel with the mistress of the hour, with her to tend him and to breathe in the bacteria breeding in his airways.

Elsa shuddered, thinking of Andrew. She had been too lost in herself to help Andrew: why should she give of herself now to aid Al? It was too much to ask, that she should do for this traitorous deceiver what she could not do for her own sweet boy.

Again she heard the cough, and this time it was followed by strange, barking wheezes that were audible even over the distance. It was that sound that at last reached her. Elsa sprung from her bed and hastened down the stairs, pausing at the linen cupboard to retrieve the thermometer from the first aid kit. She flicked on the light in the front hallway and hurried into the den.

Al was writhing, arching his back as he fought for breath. Coughs erupted from his throat and he tossed his head fitfully from side to side. His eyes were closed, but his face was lined with pain. Elsa knelt by the sofa and put her arm behind his bony shoulder blades. He moaned as she sat him up, his head falling back.

Elsa pressed her hand against his forehead. He was burning with fever and shivering convulsively, shallow gasps sounding in his throat and wheezing in his lungs. She forced the thermometer between his clicking teeth and clapped her hand over his mouth, holding it closed against the force of his next cough. Uncoordinated hands batted at her arms, but still he did not awake.

When she judged it had been long enough, she withdrew the thermometer and frowned. Surely that could not be right. One hundred and five degrees? She felt his head again, hot enough to cook an egg upon. Perhaps it was not so impossible.

Struck with fear, she went to the coffee table, on which he kept his pajamas. She snatched up the first pair that came to hand and returned to the sofa. She spoke as she lifted his limp legs into the pants.

"You have to wake up," she said. "Al, wake up!"

She slapped his crimson-spotted cheek thrice in rapid succession. He stiffened and tried to strike back, but his blow went wild and bounced off of the back of the couch.

"_Du mai!_" he snarled. "_Va fangul, _Charlie!"

"Al! Al, wake up!" Elsa commanded. She grabbed his shoulders and shook him. This time he whimpered and tried to shrink away, his hands flying up to shield his head. "Wake up!"

Dark, glassy eyes roamed feverishly over her face. A bewildered frown visited his pallid lips.

"Farrah Fawcett?" he rasped.

Elsa wanted to be angry, but she had deliberately gone out in search of Robert Redford this evening, so she had to laugh a little instead. "Not quite," she said. "Al, you are ill."

He looked like he wanted to argue, but a fit of coughing left him breathless. As he tried to gasp for air he coughed all the harder. Soon he was sitting up against Elsa's arms, curing forward and whimpering in agony between laborious wheezes. "It hurts," he moaned, leaning heavily against her.

"I know. You're sick," she said, picking up the pajama shirt and trying to get him into it. He wasn't cooperating, which made matters difficult. She wasn't even sure that he knew where he was, or who she was, or what was happening. "I'm going to take you to the hospital."

"Hosp—ho—hosp—" He dissolved into agonized coughing. Elsa thumped his back, trying to break up some of the mass of phlegm that she could hear popping within his lungs. It seemed to work, for he brought up a large quantity of foul-smelling sputum that seemed to clog his mouth, further impairing his attempts to breathe. Elsa snatched up the discarded polyester shirt that lay near his jacket, and used that as a barrier for her hand as she dug the pus-thickened mucous out of his mouth. Al choked a little as she did so, but his next breath was not quite so laborious as its predecessor. "Hosp'tal?" he managed thickly.

"Yes," Elsa said firmly. "You need to go to the hospital." She rose and tried to pull him to his feet.

"No! No!" he cried, sounding for all the world like a frightened child. "No!"

"Don't be silly," she scolded. "You need a doctor. Come on!" She dragged harder on his wrists.

He pulled back, trying to writhe out of her grip. "Leave me alone!" he sobbed. "Please, please, just leave me alone! What do you want now? Why me? I don't know anything! I don't know anything! Please, please, leave me alone!"

"But Al, you need to go to the hospital," Elsa reasoned.

She couldn't break through the delirium. "No, no, don't take me away… don't… not again, not again. I don't know anything! Oh, God, oh, God… I don't know! Why don't you believe me?" The shaking now was not all due to the fever. He was terrified. His wildly roving eyes were lost in some terrible nightmare that Elsa was certain was not entirely the product of his imagination.

"Al, I'm not trying to—"

"Beth! Beth, help me! Help me!" he wailed.

Elsa let go of his wrists and he fell back, cowering wretchedly. Beth again. Elsa wondered what his whores thought of his penchant for crying out to his first wife. She knelt down next to the sofa and stroked his forehead.

"Al, you're sick," she said. "You need to see a doctor."

"No, no," he said frantically. The pleading in his disoriented brown eyes was heartrending. "No doctor… no hosp'tal… no… no…"

"But Al—"

The trembling worsened. "No, no," he repeated in desperation, coughing with such force that he sounded as if he was going to vomit.

She couldn't bear his agitation any longer. He was going to hurt himself. She petted his damp hair. "Shh, no hospital, then," she soothed. "I'll look after you myself."

"Beth, Beth," he whispered, reaching feebly up to stroke her face. "I love you…"

"Just lie here quietly," Elsa said, drawing the blankets back over him. "Lie here quietly while I get what I need."

The instructions were unnecessary. He was unconscious again, coughing shallowly now and again, and breathing shallow, whistling breaths.

Elsa hurried from the room. From the medicine cabinet she brought a jar of eucalyptus and menthol ointment and a vial of aspirin. In the kitchen she filled a mixing bowl with cool water, found some tea towels, and poured a glass of water. Thus armed, she returned to the den.

She wet a cloth, folding it into a manageable size and placing it over Al's forehead. He made a soft, startled sound as the cold compress made contact, and then began to shiver again. Elsa worked his other arm into the vacant sleeve of the pajama shirt, but did not button it up. Al began to cough again, fretfully, each spasm bringing a fresh struggle to inhale. Carefully, she warmed the ointment in her hands, then took two fingerfulls and began to massage it into his chest. The ridges of his ribs were prominent between her working phalanges. She had had so little physical contact with him of late that she could not be sure, but it seemed to her that he had lost weight since that night in the White House.

The motion or the scent or both seemed to ease his breathing a little, and Al's slumber became less fitful. Elsa turned the cloth, which was already hot. With the other she began to bathe his cheeks and his neck. He mumbled something, leaning into her touch.

So the night passed. After one particularly bad coughing fit Al woke briefly, long enough to swallow a tablet of aspirin. After that the fever backed off marginally, but not nearly enough. By the time dawn began to light the hallway and the house beyond he was still running near one hundred and four, but at least he was resting more quietly now.

Tending to him filled Elsa with a strange peace. This was what it should have been, she and Andrew together, her simple actions easing his suffering and allowing him the peace he so desperately needed. Al's painful, bubbling coughs were so easily soothed by a firm hand and the caress of the cool cloth. When he ranted indistinctly in his delirium, a soft word in his ear was all that was needed to ease him back into restfulness. He was not hideous now, nor deceptive, nor wicked. He was simply a very ill man in need of a little kindness. The tenderness she had not been able to show Andrew she could now lavish on this poor wraith.

At eight o'clock she left him briefly, to call up to the Cape and tell Doctor Wagner what was happening. The physician was most understanding, and promised to get out there for a house call as soon as he could. Satisfied that Al's medical needs would not be neglected, Elsa returned to the den and resumed her nursing.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

It hurt. They'd broken six damned ribs this time… no, no, it was the cough that was doing it… whooping cough…mustn't make Baby sick… Beth…God damn it, his chest…

Al tried to swim towards consciousness, but the pain was holding him back, forcing him to resist, because the pain was always worse when you were awake.

A cough shook him, and the anguish was too much to bear. He cried out. He would tell them what they wanted to hear, anything they wanted to hear, if only they would leave him alone for a little while. Just a little while…

He was thirsty, so thirsty. He could see her over there, her back to the cage as she oiled her 'forty-five. She had used to be the one you could count on to sneak you a little water when you needed it. Maybe, just maybe she would remember that long enough to ease his torment now?

He called out to her in her own language. "_Nuoc, nuoc, dông tù. Titi, dông tù nuoc, dông tù nuoc, dông tù nuoc._" _Water, water, please. Titi, please water, please water, please water._

She ignored him. He knew he deserved it. He knew it was only just. That knowledge made the suffering no easier to bear.

A hand was closing around the back of his neck, pulling him up, forward. Al tried to fight it, but he was far too weak. All that fighting did was bring on another bout of coughing. Something was being forced between his teeth, something hard and smooth. He tried to spit it out, but deft fingers pushed it back. Then a miracle. Cold water lapped against his lips. He sucked at it frantically, swallowing with such desperation that he didn't even realize the hard object was washed down his throat by the blessed fluid. The water washed away the foul taste in his mouth, and the painful dryness was forgotten. He coughed again and the cup was withdrawn.

"No!" he protested. "Water…"

A firm hand with dragon-talon nails pressed against the side of his face. His eyes opened and searched the dimly-lit cell.

It wasn't a cell. It was his room, his makeshift lodgings in the house he had paid for. And the hand belonged to Elsa. It all came back in a rush, four years overtaking him in a matter of seconds. The war was over… repatriation… a hot shower at a base in the Philippines… Beth had left him… Balboa the hellhole… the empty house… NASA… claustrophobia… that damned feminist programmer… Washington… the moon…

Overwhelmed by the deluge of recollections, Al fell back against his damp pillow. It was so cold in here…

"Al, can you hear me?" Elsa asked.

He tried to answer, but he didn't know what to say. Instead he nodded.

"The doctor is here to see you," she said. "Do you think, if I help you, that you can walk to the kitchen?"

Al frowned. "Doctor?" he asked hoarsely. The world was still strangely fuzzy around the edges, and a tiny voice in the back of his head told him that his brain wasn't working properly.

"You're ill," Elsa said. Then she wrapped her arm around his shoulders and sat him up. "Come now, he is waiting."

Al didn't know how he did it, but somehow he was on his feet, leaning heavily against Elsa as she led him through to the kitchen. A chair was pulled out, waiting for him, and he collapsed into it gratefully. His head was heavy and so sore…

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Elsa watched as Doctor Wagner pressed his stethoscope to Al's back, listening to the laborious breathing. Al had his arms crossed on the table, and was leaning forward with his head upon them. He didn't seem to be entirely aware of his surroundings, but he was at least obedient, which made matters much simpler. Wagner was talking, and Elsa made herself listen.

"These lungs are in a lot of distress, Commander," he said. "You ought to be in hospital."

"No!" Al protested, a note of panic tingeing his voice. "No, I'm not going to any hospital."

"That's what your wife told me," Wagner intoned. "Now, I'm not adverse to leaving you here in her capable hands if you agree to a couple of conditions. One: complete bed rest. I don't want you running around and wearing yourself out."

"Too tired to run around," Al mumbled thickly.

"Two: I'm going to prescribe you a course of antibiotics. Take them exactly as directed. Take them religiously. And if you don't complete the treatment, I'll have you in hospital for a month." Wagner helped Al sit up and eased him backwards in the chair. Al coughed again and raised a shaking hand to massage away the pain.

"Three: I'll be back in two days to check on you. No arguments."

Al nodded his assent. Wagner returned the stethoscope to his bag. "Mrs. Calavicci, if I could have a word?"

He placed a paternal hand on her elbow and steered her into the dining room. Elsa followed, too concerned with the physician's verdict to feel indignation at the belittling gesture.

"Is it serious?" she asked.

"It's serious. He's running a fever of a hundred and three. I don't think he's thinking straight. He should have chest x-rays, and be on IV antibiotics," Wagner told her.

"He doesn't want to go to a hospital," Elsa said firmly, surprising herself by taking Al's side so quickly. "I will take care of him."

"I know you will, honey," the doctor said. He started scrawling on a prescription pad. "Now, I want him to take two of these every six hours—and I mean _every six hours_. It's a ten-day regimen. I'm afraid if he sees any improvement at all in the next couple of days it'll be his immune system, not the drugs, but by the end of the week things should start clearing up. He's probably going to have that cough for a while, but we'll see what we can do about the critters causing it. Just keep him in bed, keep him quiet, and do what you can for that fever."

Elsa nodded gravely. "I will take care of him," she vowed.

"Good. He's lucky to have a woman like you," Wagner said.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

By the time Elsa had changed the bedding on his sofa, Al was so cold that reflected it was a miracle his feet hadn't turned into hunks of ice. Yet finally she came to help him back to bed, and he was able to curl up in the warmth of the blankets, coughing petulantly.

Elsa settled him with assertive hands. "Stay here," she said. "I am going to the pharmacy to pick up your medicine. Stay in bed and try to get some rest."

Shivering miserably, Al wouldn't have had the spirit to argue with her even if he had wanted to. She smoothed his hair back from his forehead, and left him there in the semi-darkness. Distantly, as if the sounds were coming from another world, he could hear her straightening up the kitchen and gathering up her purse. Then there was a purr of a costly engine as the Ferrari peeled away.

He lay still for a long time, periodically sent into throes of agony by another cough. As he lay there he reflected on Elsa's behavior. She was so good to him, much kinder than he deserved. He knew that he had her to thank for keeping him out of the hospital—he hated hospitals, he hated them. They were glorified, sterile prisons where you were as much a the mercy of the physicians and the nurses and the sadistic orderlies as you had ever been at the mercy of the V.C. Elsa was so good to him. He owed it to her to do as she said, and lie here trying to rest.

Presently, he realized that he had to go to the head.

It took more strength that he could have imagined just to get into a sitting position. Standing was even worse. A cough nearly sent him right back down, but he grabbed the back of the sofa to brace himself, and made it to the door on unsteady feet. When he was finished his business in the bathroom, he began the difficult journey back.

He made it as far as the door to the den when his trembling knees gave out and he fell. He lay there for a minute, stupid with pain, then got onto his hands and knees. He didn't think he could make it back to his feet, so he crawled towards the sofa.

He was just about to pull himself back up when his hand lit upon a stiff bundle of papers. Puzzled, he looked down. A broad manila envelope lay on the floor. He seemed to remember having seen it before. Frowning, he leaned against the sofa with a wet, hacking cough, and opened the envelope.

Legalese was not his area of expertise. He had never seen such a document before. But Al wasn't stupid. Even his fever-muddled mind could understand what he was holding, what he was reading, and the vitriol behind the formal phrasing was plain. He didn't know what Elsa was up to now with her façade of gentleness, but anger closed upon his chest more tightly than pneumonia could. He had the truth in his hands, and her affected concern could not deny it.

Divorce papers.


	43. Chapter FortyTwo

NOTE: "Georgia On My Mind" copyright 1930, Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorel.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Perhaps divorce was not necessary after all, Elsa reflected as she poured a glass of water and removed Al's first dose from the pharmacy vial. If he would only come clean about his vile liaisons, ask forgiveness, vow never to stray again, then she could pardon his folly and his ill-judgment, and they could settle down into some kind of a life together. After all, though constantly at odds their minds worked the same way. She had read somewhere, though she could not remember where, that that was a cornerstone to a successful marriage.

She went to the den, expecting to find him much as she had left him. The light was on, however, and the sofa empty. Spread over the floor before it was the summons to the divorce arraignment. And on the far side of the room, standing unsteadily before the sideboard and knocking back a tumblerful of whiskey with a trembling hand as he coughed profusely, was Al.

"What are you doing?" Elsa exclaimed, setting down the water and the medicine and hastening forward with the intention of taking him by the arms and leading him back to the sofa. "You should be in bed."

He laughed bitterly, the drama of the moment broken by yet another cough. "Oh, should I?" he wheezed. "Haven't slept in my own damned bed since September!"

"I mean that you should be lying down," Elsa amended. "You are not well."

"I'm not stupid, either," Al said, taking another slug of liquor. He threw off her hands and brushed past her, stumbling and catching himself against the back of the sofa. She couldn't tell whether he was already drunk, or if it was just the fever that was throwing off his balance and slurring his voice. He gestured broadly at the papers. "Divorcing me, are you? Leaving me?"

"It's an initial arraignment. Nothing is finalized, but I think it's quite obvious we've had some problems—"

"Problems? Only problem I have is _you_, you grasping, possessive, suspicious—" A cough cut him off and some of the whiskey spilled from the glass, running down his arm. "Supsicious—" The coughing worsened. Al clutched his stomach with his free hand, trying to brace his overworked abdominal muscles against the torment. "Supishu—sus—"

He drew in a thin, whistling breath that caught in the back of his throat. Elsa bristled with indignation. He was going to land himself in hospital if he didn't settle down. She gripped his shoulders and forced him to sit down. "That's enough," she said. "I've brought you your medicine."

She caught up the orange tablets and pressed them into his hand. Al stared at them as if he was not quite certain what he was seeing. Elsa held out the glass of water. "Take them," she commanded.

He glared at her blackly from beneath his eyebrows and swallowed the pills, scorning the water and washing them down with the last of the liquor instead. "You want to leave, just go," he said. "I don't want you. Breathing down my neck, believing those lies…"

"Lies? Who has lied?" she countered. "Who has told me stories about old friends when he is out sleeping with another woman on the night of our wedding anniversary?"

Al slammed his foot against the floor and got to his feet. "Damn you, I told you I didn't sleep with her!" he roared.

"Oh, yes? But you spent the night in a hotel with her!" Elsa retorted. The pent-up frustrations of five long months were finally reaching a breaking point. She didn't care that the man in front of her was delirious and quite likely drunk. He was still the same… the same _nozzle _who had played the adulterer and betrayed his marriage vows. If he wanted a fight, she would give him one.

"With her and her three little—aw, what's the point, you lousy hag?" Al shouted, swaying precariously. "I—I—I—"

The pain of the coughs drove him to his knees, and the tumbler slipped from his fingers, rolling away across the floor. Struck by sudden concern for his wellbeing, Elsa bent to help him. He swatted her arm away.

"Don't touch me!" Al snarled. "Who is he?"

"Who? Who is who?" Elsa asked, bewildered.

"The guy you're leaving me for," Al said. "Is it a lawyer? I'll bet it's your goddamned lawyer. How long've you two been shacking up? Since September, maybe? Before that? You thought I was pretty disgusting last Christmas… was that when you started sleeping around?"

The flame of rage rekindled. Elsa backed away. The very nerve of the wretch, to insinuate that _she_ was the betrayer, when he—when he—

"A fine one to talk of such things!" she shrieked. "How many whores have you had, sleeping down here the better to sneak in and out of the house as you wish! Talking to them from space, posing with them on the covers of the supermarket tabloids! Indeed you disgust me! Filthy _házasságtörõ férfi! Elfajzott!_"

Al struggled to his feet, his dark eyes flashing. The marks of the fever stood out on his waxen cheeks, and his cyanotic lips worked horribly. He looked like a demon, undead and ablaze with fury. "I never cheated on you, you Hungarian Harpy! You're not worth the effort of cheating on! If I wanted to sleep with another woman I wouldn't bother sneaking around: the day I cheat on you, Orsós, you'll know it!"

"Hah! I _do_ know it!" she exclaimed, tossing her head scornfully. "You did not hide it well, did you? Photographs, calla lilies from space!"

Al froze as if he had been struck. "Ca—calla…" He coughed. "What about calla lilies?" he demanded, wheezing in an attempt to breathe.

"In space! _Angel_, you call her; _I wish to send calla lilies to you_! The whole world heard it! They say to me, he wants to send you flowers: how sweet! But he has never in my life given me flowers! I hate calla lilies! He is talking to one of his whores!" Elsa knew that her diction was deteriorating, but she didn't care. Who was he to criticize the way she spoke, anyhow? No one. He was no one and he mattered not at all. She hated him! How she hated him!

There was hatred in his eyes too, as he lunged towards her, loosing his balance and staggering against a chair for support.

"Don't you call her that!" he growled, a feral madness in his eyes. "Don't you ever call her that. She's not a whore! She loved the guy, I guess she must've loved him. She deserved a better life than I could give her: she's not a whore!"

"Sure, not a whore!" Elsa taunted. It was amusing, to hear him defending his hookers like that. Perhaps she was his proper mistress! "Does this mean she hasn't asked for money, but that you offered? Or that she prostitutes herself for no one but you?"

He roared in animalistic wrath and tried again to dive at her. Elsa danced out of his way and he stumbled against the stereo. The needle fell upon the record and it began to play. The weeping notes of a piano began to backlight their quarrel.

"Damn you, damn everybody!" Al shouted. "She deserved a better life! She's not a whore! Damn it, it wasn't her fault! It was those nozzles at the base! It was that stinking lawyer! It was that goddamned Marine—_your goddamned Marine_!"

She knew it! She knew he resented her love of Andrew. The hypocrite. Just like all men with their double standards. Let him have his childhood fancies! Let him have his first wife! His prostitutes, his harlots, as many as he pleased! But the boy she had loved, from whom she had been parted for nine years, who had given his life for his country, _he_ was forbidden! _He_ was a crime! It was disgusting. Despicable. Above all, it was infuriating.

"Hah! You talk of Andrew! _You_, not even worthy to speak his name! You miserable, stinking, deceiving –_elfajzott! _Monster! Devil! Adulterer!" Elsa bellowed. "How dare you speak of him? He should never have died! You should have died, not him. Died horribly in terrible pain, you hated, worthless filth! You sniveling coward, self-important beast! I wish you had died in Vietnam, not him!"

A horrible, keening sound of rage or grief or sheer strangulation or some hideous blend of the three welled up in Al's throat. He caught up one of the glasses on the sideboard and hurled it across the room. It shattered against the door. "So do I!" he screamed. "God damn you, so do I!"

"So why didn't you?" she demanded. "Died in that jungle like the scum that you are, saved everyone trouble and pain! Spared us all the misfortune of knowing you! All the things they have done for you at NASA, and still you shame them—soiling your helmet, falling into the sea, looking miserable at their parades. You cannot do anything right! You are a failure! You are a waste! Why didn't you die? Why didn't you stay in Vietnam? You stinking, hateful, wicked man! _Badz meg, elfajzott! Menj a pokolba! Menj a francha! _On the day you die not even the worms will mourn your passing!"

She fell silent. Through the abysmal quiet that surged between them a strong, evocative voice floated.

"…_comes as sweet and clear as moonlight through the pines…_"

Al started to shake, violently and uncontrollably. He clutched at the sideboard for support before he could fall. Elsa felt her chest heaving with the momentum of her wrath. His expression mirrored the fury in her soul. Still, the voice was singing.

"…_other arms reach out to me…_"

She hated him. God, how she hated him! It was never meant to be. The happy times had been nothing more than a deception.

"…_other eyes smile tenderly_…"

Al's throat was spasming. No doubt he was thinking the selfsame thing with regard to her. Oh, Andrew, Andrew. She thought to herself, had she married Andrew nothing like this would ever have happened.

"…_Still in peaceful dreams I see: the road leads back to you_..."

Better if they had never married. Better still had they never met.

"_My Georgia, my Georgia, no peace I find. Just a little song keeps Georgia on my mi—"_

There was a rapid motion from Al and the stereo squealed in an explosion of cut glass and alcohol. The music vanished with a sparking death-throe.

Now the silence was complete.

Elsa stared at Al, then turned to regard the ruined stereo, and the remains of the decanter of whiskey that he had thrown at it. The shaking in his limbs worsened, and he sank to the ground, his knees tucked under his body and his hands splayed out on the ground before him like a Muslim at prayer. His shoulders quivered with fever or exhaustion.

Perhaps his fit of temper had broken his rage, but it had not done the same for her. She was only glad that she was not the one who had to pick up the shards of her dignity after a childish fit of destruction—this time. She drew herself up to her full height and tossed her head so that her earrings swung.

"As you say in American," she told him boldly; "I will see you in court."

Then she turned on her heels and left him.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Al didn't know how long he lay there, shaking with silent sobs, but at last the hysteria passed, leaving in its place only anguish and emptiness. He rolled onto his side, drawing his knees up to his chest and subsisting into faint coughing.

He was delirious and he was sloshed, and he was in so much pain. There was the physical stuff: the agony in his chest, the aching in his limbs, his throbbing head. There was also the sting of Elsa's words ringing in his ears. Why _hadn't _ he died in Vietnam, damn it? Why? It was too painful… too hard to live when no one wanted you. It would have been so easy, so very easy to die… hard to live, easy to die. If only Beth had waited. If only that Marine of Elsa's hadn't croaked. If only… if only… oh, Beth, Beth, Beth…

No, he reminded himself firmly. No, Elsa. Elsa was the present problem. She was divorcing him—well, to hell with Elsa! To hell with her!

He got unsteadily to his feet and stumbled over to the makeshift clothes-rail, fingering through his shirts. He didn't care what the doctor said. He didn't care about anything anymore. Especially, he didn't care about Elsa. She was divorcing him anyway, leaving him. He didn't really think that there was another man, but on the other hand, why wouldn't there be? Women were just as capable of looking elsewhere as men were. As she obviously thought he was.

She thought he'd cheated on her. He hadn't. Even when they'd been at each other's throats, even when he'd needed to get laid in the worst way, he had resisted the temptation in the name of the sacred bond of matrimony.

Well, fuck that.

She thought he was a—how did she say it?—a _házasságtörõ férfi_, an adulterer. He'd show her adultery. She was divorcing him for sleeping around: why should he let her divorce an innocent man?

He found the brightest, flashiest polyester shirt in his collection and reached for one of his new three-piece suits, a pearl grey concoction that was guaranteed to attract the right kind of girl. To hell with Doc Wagner's ultimatum. To hell with his fever and his goddamned pneumonia. To hell with NASA. To hell with Elsa. He wanted to get laid tonight, he wanted to forget, and if it killed him he was going to find a way to do it.


	44. Chapter FortyThree

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

The night was young, Al told himself as he pulled into the parking lot of a tame-ish nightclub in an upscale corner of downtown Orlando. The night was young, and he didn't exactly have a running start on it. Quite the opposite. He felt like he'd been hog-tied around the axel of a semi driving in the wrong direction, and was now obliged to somehow get back into the race.

Couldn't think about that. Focus on the mission objective. Operation: Bingo-Bango-Bongo.

He was out of practice, but you never really lost the touch. If Charlie hadn't been able to beat it out of him sixteen months of matrimony weren't going to do it.

He parked the Ferrari near the door, so it was nice and visible—chicks loved a guy with a hot car. He had to pause to cough, but was soon on his way again. Couldn't let that little things stop you. Besides, liquor would help. The whiskey he'd had back at the house was helping already.

Inside, he paused to take in the scene. Scantily clad bodies gyrating on the dance floor. Too long since he'd had this kind of fun. Emboldened and a little tipsy, Al sidled into the crush of young and happy people in bright clothes. A couple of seminude beauties were doing the Bird together, and he zeroed in with all the precision of an automatic missile. He caught a dubious glance from one of the girls as he started to move along with them.

"Hello, hello," he cooed. A cough tried to bubble up his throat, but he swallowed it resolutely. He raised his voice to be heard over the din. "Who clipped your wings?" he asked.

"Wings?" one of the girls said, frowning in puzzlement.

"Well, you must've fallen from heaven, 'cause I've never seen the likes of you on Earth!" Al said.

They giggled, clearly flattered. The music changed, and so did the rhythm of their swaying. It took Al's muddled mind a moment to adapt to the moves. He reached out an exploratory hand, running it up the silky back of the girl to his left. She shivered seductively against him, and he grinned. "You seraphim have names?" he asked.

"Crystal," said the one he wasn't touching, moving closer so that her shoulder brushed his as they shimmied up and down to the music.

"Louise," said the other. "What about you, handsome?"

"Al," he said.

"You look familiar," Crystal shouted. "Come here often?"

"Not really," Al said. His chest was aching, and it was getting harder and harder to keep time. "You girls heard of a little project called Apollo?"

The reaction was incredible. They both squealed in delight, bouncing up and down with excitement. One of them—Al couldn't quite sort out which one through the pounding of the bass line in his sore head—thoroughly butchered his last name.

"Calavicci," he corrected, then doubled over on himself as a fit of coughs that he couldn't stifle sent waves of fire through his torso. Crystal bent over and helped him straighten, hugging him supportively.

"Are you okay?" she cooed, petting his hair. Louise, apparently jealous, took hold of him from the other side and stroked his cheek. Al realized abruptly that his skin was rough with stubble. He hadn't remembered to shave before leaving the house.

He grinned, slipping one arm around each supple waist. "Just dandy," he said. "But a bit thirsty. Can I buy you girls a drink?"

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

It was easier to breathe like this, leaning back against the bar with a pretty lady at each elbow and a vodka-and-tonic to sip from. Always best to drink vodka when you didn't know how your company felt about liquor: it left hardly any smell on the breath. He wasn't really comfortable: he was tired and sore, and the flashing lights hurt his eyes… but it was a necessary preliminary to the goal of the evening, and judging by the way these girls were fawning over him, asking inane questions about space and making lewd comments about the Saturn V, he was heading in the right direction.

It didn't take Crystal very long to get bored, though Louise seemed content to nurse her Margarita and stroke Al's neck. "You wanna dance?" Crystal asked.

"Do ducks like rain?" Al countered, draining his glass in one long quaff. As he stood he stumbled a little, coughing wetly. He hoped more of that green gunk wasn't going to start coming up. Talk about your major turn-offs. Crystal giggled and he slithered after her onto the dance floor. Louise, annoyed, watched them go.

After about ninety seconds of mad gyrating Al's head was spinning so badly that he wasn't a hundred percent sure that he was still on his feet. Despite the mass of humanity around him and the poor ventilation that always seemed to characterize places like this, it was freezing cold in here. And the liquor wasn't working. He knew he was tipsy, drunk, he was drunk… but it wasn't supposed to be like this. Alcohol was supposed to make him happy, buoyant. Instead he felt sore and exhausted and sick to his stomach. It was too hard to breathe this thick air, especially when you were exerting yourself this way. He started to cough again, thickly and painfully.

Black spots occluded his vision and he sank to his knees, wheezing and choking. A jiving calf caught him in the kidney, and he fell forward with a grunt of pain. The air trying to work its way into his inflamed lungs wheezed and gurgled. He tried to get to his feet, groping wildly for some kind of support. He found a soft, silken hand, and struggled up, still coughing.

" 'M fine," he mumbled between laborious gasps. "Jus'… jus'…" He couldn't continue. The coughing worsened. Damn it, the alcohol should have helped. Damn it.

"It's pretty smoky in here," Crystal said, letting him cling to her shoulder for support. "Maybe some fresh air?"

Al tried to tell her that this would be one heck of a good idea, but he couldn't get the words out. It was like being in that expended suit all over again. No matter how hard he tried to breathe, there was nothing his lungs could handle. So he coughed, striving futilely to drag in sufficient air to ease the fit, or at least to feed his brain, which was beginning to panic.

Somehow they got through the crowd, Crystal supporting him as he stumbled. Then they were out in the night, the sky pink above them and the sidewalk dingy and deserted in the light of the streetlamps. Al pulled towards his car, falling against the hood and clutching at the smooth enamel, arching his back as he tried to breathe. The girl was rubbing his back and clucking inanely. Al drew in a sharp inhale of air so cold that it triggered a whole fresh cough, a violent, shaking one that erupted from his navel, up through his tormented chest, and out in an explosion of phlegm. His tongue twitched and convulsed, trying to expel the sticky mass from his mouth with about as much success as his body was having with the pollutants congesting his lungs. His gag reflex started up, and Al had to ram his fist against his teeth to keep from bringing up all the alcohol that he'd ingested over the last few hours.

Crystal pressed her hand to his head, then withdrew it sharply. "God, you're _hot_!" she cried.

"Th—anks—" Al choked out, still struggling against his body's unacceptable desires. "You—oo—"

"No, I mean, like, you have a _fever_!" she exclaimed. "Are you _sick_?"

If most coughs were missiles, this one was an atom bomb. Al's whole body spasmed, and he almost slid off the hood of the Ferrari. Up came the mucous that had been clogging his mouth, a cohesive mess almost as green as the vehicle it spattered. Crystal pulled back with a squeal of disgust.

"Ew… have you got leprosy or something?" she cried. "_Ew_!"

Al couldn't answer her. He fell forward, not caring that he landed with his cheek in the stinking, pus-laced mess. He struggled to breathe as shallowly as he could, desperate that the coughing should not begin again. His shoulders rose and fell in painful jerks. Convulsions jerked his stomach. He was so distracted by hypoxia and pain that he didn't even bother to wonder why his eyes closed against the spattering water that fell upon them.

Dimly, on the very edge of his narrow universe, he could hear Crystal's soft sounds of consternation and disgust. Then she spoke. "Uh… look… thanks for the cocktail, but, like… I gotta go, okay?"

Al couldn't answer her. If he tried to talk he was going to start coughing again, and his chest already felt like someone had run a jeep over it. He'd seen that happen once… a jeep… God, it hurt!

He shivered. It was cold out here, and it didn't help that he was wet… wet? Rain. Rain! It was raining!

The effort was enormous, but instinct overrode good sense and the instinct to avoid the pain at all costs. There were some things that were more important than lying still, and this was one of them. Rain! His prayers… his prayers had been heard. The Devil had turned his back just for a minute, and it was raining. Al rolled onto his back with a soft moan of agony, turning his head towards the heavens so that the plump, cool drops fell upon his upturned face. They soothed his aching head, easing the fires that raged there. He didn't feel his shivering body, only the blessed torrents pouring from the sky. With another febrile cough, he opened his mouth.

The water fell in, drop by heavenly drop, soothing his throat, easing his suffering. He wasn't going to die today. Not today. He had water. Clean, cool rainwater. As long as he had a little water there was nothing that could kill him.

Al tried to open his eyes in praise of the clouds that were finally banishing the wretched summer inferno, but the rain in his already sodden eyelashes drove them closed again. He didn't care. He could feel the rain battering his body, soaking through his ragged clothes, washing the blood from his hair, easing the pain…

Slowly the water brought him back to his senses, and he realized that he was lying on the hood of his car, drenched to the skin, his shirt clinging to his ravaged chest. Ashamed of the moment of disorientation, and shivering violently, he sat up, coughing a little. His head was so sore…

As he stood he stumbled, and the ground rose up to meet him. He barked his hip against the curb and landed on his hands and knees in the gutter, the runoff chilling his legs and bringing on another bout of coughing. Frantically, he looked around, but there was no one to witness his disheveled helplessness.

Somehow he writhed out of the sodden suit jacket and pulled off the vest. His feet were wet, and he wrestled off his shoes and socks, too. Then his hand found his keys and he crawled across the asphalt towards the door, afraid to stand lest the coughing should start up again. He hauled himself up into the driver's seat, gagging a little on the phlegm clinging to the back of his throat. He gripped the wheel and rested his head against it. His head… he wondered if he was still running a fever. Maybe he should just head home and go to bed.

Home? Hah. Not a chance. He was going to find a woman, remember?

He remembered. He disgusted them. He was coughing up slime, he couldn't keep his feet. No girl would sleep with him like this, not if you paid her.

Maybe if you paid her.

He fired up the engine and backed away from the nightclub. There was a nice little bordello fifteen miles out of town. He'd heard some good things, but never actually sampled the wares. He'd never needed to. Not 'til tonight. If this was the only way, so be it.

Coughing fretfully, he zipped out onto the freeway, and so to the highway. It was deserted at this time of the night, which was just as well, because between the liquor and the fever he wasn't really in the best shape for driving. He drew in a thin, whistling breath and the phlegm bubbled in his lungs. Two glimmering pinions of light appeared in the distance, and Al tried to square his leaden shoulders. Another car, coming in the opposite direction. Hacking a little, he squinted, trying to make his muddled brain focus. He coughed again, missing the fluctuation in the other set of headlights as the approaching vehicle swerved deliberately into the wrong lane.

He could hear hoots and laughter from the approaching convertible, and the heavy thrum of expensive bass speakers. Kids out for a cruise. They'd probably taken him for one of their own, in his pricy sports car. Looked like they wanted to play a little chicken…

Al chuckled. He'd never been much for chicken. Not in cars, anyway. Cars were too expensive to throw around like that. Now, motorcycles, that was a different matter. There wasn't a biker in the city who could outdo Calavicci at chicken…

A cough ripped painfully through him, and his tires fluctuated as he reefed awkwardly on the wheel. The pain shooting through his chest as he struggled fruitlessly for air woke him up to the present. Looking out the windshield, Al suddenly realized he was aligned for a head-on collision, and the repercussions of this didn't take long to strike home. But by then the headlights were blinding him, his watering eyes unable to adapt.

He dragged on the steering wheel and swerved out of the way, but his foot was slow to find the brake and he careened off into the ditch, stopping with a concussive shudder as the Ferrari collided with the hillside. His chest bounced off the steering wheel and his head cracked against the windshield. Behind him the vehicle full of inebriated young daredevils streaked past with a Doppler fading of their victory yell.

The impact had winded him entirely. Al lay there, staring into the darkness, absolutely unable to breathe. His stomach roiled and he could no longer control himself. Somehow he threw his arm onto the door. It opened and he fell out, landing with a soft _plop_ in the ditch. He dragged himself away from the vehicle, and started to retch. He closed his eyes against the wretchedness, as his stomach seized and clenched, expelling liquor and mucus and acid and blood—except that he thought maybe the blood was coming from his nose. The agony that vomiting caused in his diaphragm and chest was worse even than the pain of coughing, which Al wouldn't have thought possible. He forced his aching legs to move, propelling his body away from the vile-smelling mess, then he fell forward into the mud, unable to move, unable to breathe, and unable to fight any longer. Shivering violently, he drew his arms in towards his chest and let go of reality.


	45. Chapter FortyFour

Note: Excerpt from "Chelsea Hotel #2" © Leonard Cohen, 1974.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

The only trouble with having a winter anniversary, Mark Carpenter reflected as he navigated out of town and onto the highway, was that it usually rained. He'd wanted a moonlit swim, but they couldn't do that now. Meg, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind. She had her head on his shoulder, petting his leg fondly. She was just so glad to have a couple of days without responsibilities. A romantic liaison, no kids, no worries. They'd left Carla, Darcy, Bert and baby Jill at home in Georgia under Grandma's capable eyes, and were thoroughly enjoying the little taste of liberty. After an exquisite supper and a night of dancing, they were headed back to the bed and breakfast on the coast. Mark leaned over and kissed Meg's soft hair.

"Happy fifteenth," he murmured.

"Mmh," she sighed. "I love you, flyboy."

He grinned. What more could a man ask of life?

"Stop!" Meg shrieked suddenly, sitting up abruptly and twisting to look out the back windows. "Stop, there's a car…"

Mark hit the brakes, pulling onto the shoulder. Meg popped the glove compartment and pulled out the flashlight she insisted they kept there. With no concern for her evening gown in the pouring rain, she sprung out of the vehicle, jogging back towards the green vehicle lying in the ditch with the driver's door open. Mark got out and followed, grabbing her wrist and pulling her back.

"Careful, honey. You never know…" he said. Then Meg stiffened with a little cry of horror.

"There is!" she exclaimed, starting forward again. "There's someone down there!"

Mark felt his heart racing. Don't panic, he reminded himself. First thing they taught you in flight school. Stay calm and collected.

"Stay here," he said, holding her back. "Stay right here. I'll take a look."

Meg shook her head. "Not likely," she said. "You could need backup. You never know."

Mark spared his wife a brief grin. This was why he'd married her! She was a damned good cook and a great mom, but best of all, she was aces in an emergency. It had been no accident that she was moved from the switchboards to Information at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the only threat worse than that of a nuclear holocaust had been the threat of wholesale civilian panic. Nobody could beat Meg when it came to a level head and a calm voice. When he'd gone off to war Mark had gone without worries, because he knew that whatever happened to him Meg would be able to take care of herself and the kids. He'd been the one who went to pieces over Chip and Bingo: Meg had been the rock of strength. Only, of course, the mourning of Bingo had been premature.

Mark was glad his old friend had made it into space . He'd been genuinely convinced Al had gone off the deep end. To this day, though, he wondered who Holloway had talked to who'd persuaded him so adamantly otherwise.

Meg took off her satin pumps and hitched up the long skirt of her dress, and carefully sidestepped down the incline. It was a deep ditch, seven or eight feet at a fifty-degree incline. Meg slipped a little, but caught herself against the wet grass. Mark followed resolutely. The beam of Meg's flashlight swept the ground, and Mark took in the scene with his limited forensics skills.

The driver had bailed, tossed his cookies, and crawled a few yards away before collapsing in a sodden heap of filthy disco clothes and curling dark hair. It was a boy, short and skinny as hell, lying with his face in the mud. Some kid out joyriding in Pop's Ferrari—and from the smell of the mess he'd left by the car, plastered as heck. Mark wrinkled his nose. Meg thrust the flashlight into his hand and ran forward.

"Hello?" she called. "Hello, can you hear me?"

The little punk didn't answer, of course. Probably unconscious. He couldn't be too badly hurt, though, if he'd managed to get out of the car and drag himself over there before passing out. Mark stood back, holding the light and letting Meg go about her mothering routine. He was _never_ going to let his kids drive.

Meg knelt down and shook the unconscious youth. "Can you hear me?" she repeated. Still no answer. She rolled the body over, wiping mud away from the mouth and nose. The boy coughed, a horrible, cloying, wet cough that was followed by a laborious inhale that whistled and gurgled in his throat.

"My God, he's burning up," Meg murmured. "Honey, don't worry. We're going to help you. Mark, bring the light closer, okay?"

"Is it bad?" Mark asked, approaching uneasily.

"I think he's sick…" Meg fumbled with the kid's tie, loosening it and pulling it away. As she did so, he coughed again, with such force that his whole slender body quivered. Mark winced at the painful whooping gasp that the unconscious boy took, followed as it was by another brutal cough. Meg patted down his hips, looking for a wallet. "Check the car for I.D., okay?" she instructed.

"The light?"

"Well, how are you going to find anything without a light?" Meg demanded. "I've got it under control here."

Of course she did. She always had everything under control. It was what made her special. Mark moved off, listening to Meg talk to the unconscious kid. Inside the car, thrown haphazardly on the floor at the passenger's side, was a suit jacket, soaking wet and rumpled. In the inside pocket, he found a wallet. Turning back to his wife, Mark held the light so it provided for them both, then opened the leather folio.

The next thing he knew he was on his knees next to Meg, and the light was in her hand as he frantically wiped the thick dark muck from the casualty's face. "God…" he breathed. "Bingo."

Meg frowned at him. "What?"

"Bingo," Mark said. "Bingo Calavicci. Al."

"No, it can't be Al," Meg reasoned. "He's much too th—oh!" Her eyes went wide as she recognized their third child's namesake. "Oh, God."

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Elsa cradled the telephone, staring pensively at nothingness. The fool. The stupid man. He could have been killed. The stupid, stupid man.

Why, she wondered, did people like Al Calavicci exist? What kind of conflagration of circumstances could lead a person to take such reckless chances with their own lives? It made no sense.

She was glad such people did exist, though. As turbulent as their two years together had been, she could not deny that there was some need in her heart that they had fulfilled. She felt whole as she had not since Andrew's death. Somehow, the bad marriage that was still so good had patched the hole in her heart, covering it even though it would never be filled. Somehow fighting with Al, sleeping with Al, playing with him, tending to him, arguing with him, coexisting with a person so different from the man she had once thought was the only one she could coexist with, had helped her to a revelation. Life was not a stage missing its principle actor, just because of a badly-timed napalm run eight years ago. Life was her creature, to do with as she pleased. To make mistakes with, to have fun with, even to risk stupidly if she wished to. She had learned that from Al.

He was stable, they said. Expected to make a full recovery, given time, they said. A fool, they said. Should have come to the hospital right off the bat.

The implication was there, too, that _she_ should have brought him to the hospital right off the bat. Elsa resented that. Was she supposed to make unilateral decisions on behalf of a competent human being, merely because she was married to him? She wondered how they expected her to convince Al, of all people, to do anything he didn't want to do.

She was grateful that he would heal. She did not wish him dead, however angry he made her. But she would not go to visit him. She could not. If she did, she knew that she would begin to feel sorry for him again, to have pity on him and sympathy for him. She would want to nurse him back to health, back into a position where he could make her angry. Then they would fall out again, and again she would want to divorce him. It had happened before this way. She was intelligent enough to see the cycle, but was she strong enough to break it?

Yes, she decided. She had to be. It wasn't healthy to live this way, scratching one another's eyes out, using sex as an apology, fighting again. It reminded her of that song, the one they played so often on the radio: "_I need you, I don't need you, I need you, I don't need you… And all of that jivin' around_."

Well, the _jivin'_, whatever that was, was over. There would be a divorce. She did not care how ill he was (no that wasn't right, she did care, truly, but she must not allow herself to); there would be a divorce. They both needed to escape this destructive spiral.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Al stared at the junction between wall and ceiling. He hated hospitals. He hated the puritan white of the walls and the linens and the curtains. He hated the smell of disinfectant that haunted the air. He hated the doctors with their condescending approach to healing. He hated the nurses because they weren't Beth. Most of all he hated the helplessness.

Everyone told him he was lucky. Lucky he hadn't been killed veering off the road. Lucky he _had_ veered off the road, instead of plowing into those kids. Lucky he hadn't choked on his own sputum. Lucky someone—no one had told him who—had found him that night, instead of the next morning, by which time, in his condition, he would have been dead of exposure.

He didn't feel very lucky, semi-prone in a bed at a permanent forty-five degree angle, with an I.V. line running a burning trickle of antibiotics into his bloodstream. An oxygen mask was clamped over his mouth and nose, buckled behind his head with a trick clasp that he still hadn't figured out. He suspected there was a piece missing. Whenever he brought up some of the sludge that was still smothering his lungs, he had to ring for a nurse to clean out the mask, or else sit there smelling the gunk for hours until one of them just happened to notice. He had a feeling he probably had an uncooperative patient warning on his chart.

The nozzle of a pulmonary surgeon had him on full bed rest, which meant that he wasn't even allowed to get up to use the head. It wasn't much of a problem, though, because he wasn't in any kind of mood to eat. He didn't care how much the nurses scolded him: he wasn't hungry. So they hooked up another I.V. and let him be. Yeah, there was almost certainly an uncooperative note on his chart. After five days no one was even arguing anymore. Which was a shame, because he was starting to feel better, and he was bored out of his wits, and there was nothing else to do.

The enforced inactivity had given him a lot of time to think things over. It was better if he and Elsa split up. He didn't understand how her mind worked, and she obviously wasn't interested in trusting him. In fact, she had made her opinion of him rather brutally pain. Really, why should she trust him? His body had derailed his attempt to cheat on her, but the intention was still there. As ridiculous as it seemed, Al found he did have strong feelings about adultery after all. Namely, if you were ready to sleep around, then you were ready to be single again.

A knock at the door surprised him. He turned his head as Jim Taggert entered, dressed in civvies and carrying an armload of papers. Jim smiled uncertainly.

"How're you doin', buddy?" he asked, approaching the bed with obvious trepidation.

"Peachy," Al rasped. His throat was raw from weeks of coughing, further aggravating the gravel quality of his voice. "What's this, they're restoring visiting privileges? Here I thought I wouldn't get those till after the first parole hearing."

Jim laughed a little. "They said you're sick," he explained.

"That's a filthy lie," deadpanned Al. "They've got me wired like the Six Million Dollar Man with minimal admissible evidence."

"Well, whatever's infectious it's not your sense of humor," Jim told him dryly. He pulled up a chair and set the papers on the bed-tray. "All the guys have been worrying about you."

Al scoffed. "You terminate their program, and the Air Force turn into a bunch of old women," he jeered. "Nothing to worry about, kid. Just a little chest cold."

"Pneumonia," Jim admonished. "People die from pneumonia."

"Sure, old men and babies," Al demurred. And almost an astronaut. The thought scared the hell out of him, so he brushed it off and turned the conversation on another target. "How's things?"

"Fine," Jim said. "Uh… Elsa hasn't been to visit, has she?"

"Not as such."

The kid looked genuinely sad about it. "I'm sorry. Everybody… well, we're starting to think she means it."

"I never doubted it," Al said.

"So you're not even going to try to keep her?"

Al shrugged. "She's her own person. She isn't mine to keep. I was trying to cheat on her the night they hauled me in." Jim looked stricken, so Al grinned and gestured broadly. "Doesn't matter. I'm going back to school, se if I can't cram a little more knowledge into this old brain."

"I know," Jim said. "A guy from the Navy stopped by the Cape saying you'd filed for permission. He sent these."

Jim swung the tray into Al's reach. He had brought a course calendar and application papers from M.I.T. Al smiled enormously, hampered only a little by the mask over his mouth.

"Thanks, kid," he said. "Give me something to do 'til I can get out of here."

"What do you want to study?" the young pilot queried.

"Computers," Al said. "Computers are the wave of the future. The coming thing. There's a lot of potential there."

There was a silence. "Isn't that kind of… ironic?" Jim asked.

"What?" Al said absently, flipping through the triplicate forms.

"Well, I mean, that's Elsa's thing, too, and…"

"Yeah, so when I outstrip her she can tell everybody she taught me everything I know. Do I care?" Al asked.

"Don't you?" said Jim.

"Nope," Al said brightly. "Time to move on. Isn't the first time I've started from scratch." He coughed a little. "Don't look so down, kid. Divorce isn't the end of the world."

Jim's expression clearly communicated that it would be for _him_. But then, Jim was married to his one true love. If he'd had to go through all this court stuff with _Beth_, Al reflected, he probably would've taken an electric drill to his temple months ago.

"Some couples are meant to be together forever," Al said. "Others are stops on the road."

"Elsa's a stop?"

"A Motel Six, at least," Al agreed. "She's not shedding any tears over the breakup. Why should I? It was our second try at happiness. We'll both be able to try again."

"You're unhappy?" Jim asked. He looked devastated. Good thing Apollo was done with: the kid was getting way too attached.

Al put on the largest grin he could dredge up. "Son, as long as a man has his pilot's license and his commission, he's got everything he needs to be happy," he said. "And let me tell you something about women. They're like flowers. Each one is a little different, sure, but fundamentally they're all the same. There's nothing you'll find in one that you can't find in another."

There was a long pause. Neither of them knew what to say: that much was blatantly obvious. Jim looked up at last, shifting uncomfortably.

"I… uh… I have to get back: Jeremy's got a doctor's appointment downtown, but I'll stop by tomorrow. Is there anything you want me to get for you? Anything at all?"

Al considered this carefully. There _was_ one thing he needed, all right. He didn't especially want it, but he knew he needed it.

"As a matter of fact, kid, there is," he said. "Get me a lawyer."


	46. Epilogue: April 1, 1969

NOTE: Dialogue from… well, you know where I got this dialogue from.

EPILOGUE

Admiral Al Calavicci opened the binder full of bank statements. It had been a very productive week. Sam had been in stasis now for nine days, which had given everyone at the Project down time to spare. Personally, Al had used the first day to catch up on his sleep. Then the next six to tackle the Colossus of paperwork that always seemed to accrue on his desk, no matter what he tried to inhibit it. Yesterday he'd spent entirely with Tina, most of it in bed and the rest of it doing things that weren't entirely inappropriate activities for bed in the bathtub, the living room, and the basement lounge. Now that the needs of Project and Self had been dealt with, it was time to sacrifice a year-old ram without fault or blemish to the god of Finances.

He farmed out his personal bookkeeping, of course: couldn't afford not to. A charming young accountant with the most exquisitely balanced… _ledgers_ you ever saw took care of it for him. Nevertheless, it behoved a man to be aware of his financial situation, and so he tried to glance through this particular book every couple of months.

It had been more than a couple of months this time, though, he realized as he flipped through statements going back at least half a year to the last one he'd signed off on. There was a doodle in the corner, a clumsy sketch of Teresa Bruckner, the darling little munchkin who'd come down for breakfast one morning to find a man in her mother's clothes and a hologram in her kitchen. Al grinned. Seemed like it had been longer than six months since that leap. That had been a great one. Always nice when you did something really important. When you made a real difference.

The last leap had been like that, too. Re-uniting that ill-fated couple, giving true love the second chance it deserved.

He hadn't let Sam know just how close to home Phillip Dumont's plight had struck. Sam didn't need to remember about Beth. It had cut the kid up badly enough when he'd told him the first time. As Al recalled, he'd actually had tears in his eyes. Soft-hearted sentimentalist. Still, it had been awfully good to see Phillip and Katherine reunited the way they should be. The way he and Beth should have been.

It wasn't fair. Sam had had his break, been given a second try with Donna. Was it too much to ask of God or Time or Fate or Whatever that Al get a chance to make it right with Beth? Just imagine stepping out of the Imaging Chamber one day to find that the last thirty years were nothing but a bad dream…

But Sam had connections. All Al had was a lifetime of proof that God didn't care, but boy, the Devil sure did.

Sparing one more wistful thought for the only woman he had ever really loved, now lost in the distant past, he turned back to the present, which meant his bank statements.

He thumbed through them. The first charge on each one was always the same: had been for over twenty years. Eight hundred and fifty dollars deducted with all the regularity of an IRS payroll garnishment, taken off by his attorney and sent away to his first wife—well, his first wife after Beth. Somehow Beth always seemed in a league of her own, which made it hard sometimes to keep the other four straight.

Al grinned ruefully. Over the years, that Hungarian had cost him the better part of half a million dollars. Most of that had been in the initial settlement, though of course ten grand a year added up pretty quickly over a couple of decades. She'd walked away with the house, the cars, the rest of his compensation pay, and most of his credit rating, along with an alimony that would be considered ridiculously high at _today's_ prices, for a working wife with no kids. To her credit, she'd never come back for more the way Sharon and Max had. Probably because any court would probably have ruled in his favor at a second viewing. Those had been feminist times, and the Hungarian had found herself a feminist lawyer and a feminist judge. Never underestimate the capitalist wiles of a commie! Al had always considered himself lucky that he'd got out of that courtroom still wearing his jockey shorts.

It had meant a few lean months, before the brass made up their minds that the best way to wipe away the blot the ugly divorce had cast on their little space hero's image was to show confidence in him and promote him to Captain. The resultant increase in pay had ensured that the second half of his Masters' studies at M.I.T. had been considerably more comfortable than the first.

Funny, though, how little he remembered about his second wife. It came to the surface in fits, like the memories buried in the iron casket labelled "Vietnam". A glimpse of red hair here, a Hungarian swear-word there, the feeling of sand between his toes. Just random fragments of a torn photograph long ago scattered in the wind. He couldn't even remember her name.

It was Ziggy who interrupted these musings. It took very little for her to banish the Admiral's indistinct attempts at remembrance. Sam had leaped.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

The kid had been in all kinds of tough situations, but standing in front of a rookie cop's locker overflowing with colorful lingerie had to be one of the tougher ones. Resisting the very real temptation to burst out laughing, Al coached his friend.

"It's a hazing, Sam," he advised. "Like in a fraternity."

Some people didn't know the meaning of the word _gratitude_. "I know what it is, Al," the annoyed physicist muttered, speaking out of the corner of his mouth as if it was the Observer's fault he'd leaped into a cross-dressing detective. Turning to the crowd of good-naturedly jeering policemen, Sam reached into the locker and fished out one of the slinky little garments.

"Tina will love this!" he announced.

Al grinned, his imaginative mind having no difficulty filling out the shimmery black camisole with his lover's oh-so-caressable curves. "I'm sure she would," he chuckled lecherously.

Sam plucked up a tiny red thong. "Now, I think this'll fit Laurie," he said.

Laurie! Al had almost forgotten Laurie. She ran that little book shop in upstate New York. They used to read the Brownings and bop one another in Non-Fiction, D to M…

"_Michelle_!" Sam continued, displaying a naughty-looking garter belt. Al's playful mood heightened as he remembered his old fishing buddy. Michelle'd had a long, shapely pair of lures that would have made Captain Ahab forget Moby Dick!

He turned his attention back to Sam, eager for the next recollection.

"Ooh—oh—oh!" Sam exclaimed, holding aloft a negligee with peek-a-boo fronts in black lace. "And I can't _wait_ to see Elsa _in this!_"

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Total blank. Al frowned, groping in his mind for something that should be there, but wasn't.

The cops roared with laughter. Sam had got in some dig on his partner, but Al hadn't really heard it. Dammit, there was a hole… something that _should_ be there. A glimmer of hair like fire, rhinestone earrings in the sunlight, a haughty laugh, the walls closing in on him… but nothing else. No face. No sense of where or when. As if someone had excised Elsa, whoever she was, from his mind and left a well-healed but unmistakable hole.

Detective Scaggs gave Sam a companionable smack on the back. "You're all right, partner," he said fondly, tossing the nightie into the locker and moving off.

Puzzled, perhaps hoping that maybe Sam would bail him out by admitting he'd thrown one of his own girlfriends into the mix, Al gave the kid a bemused look. "Elsa?" he said. "What Elsa? I don't remember any _Elsa_."

Sam wasn't listening. He had just pulled a pair of jeans out from under the foliage of women's undergarments. He clutched them as if they were a priceless treasure and cast his eyes towards the heavens. Al could see that right now the kid really knew that there was a God up there, and boy, was God ever good.

"Pants," Sam breathed. "_Thank you_."

Al smirked. Leave it to Sammy to stand in front of a locker full of Saturday night fun, giving thanks for a boring old pair of jeans. "Well, personally," he jibed; "I think you'd look kinda foxy in this little purple number with the white fuzz." He grinned wickedly at the displaced scientist. "Just my opinion."

Sam gave him a look of utter disgust. "Why am I here?" he asked through clenched teeth.

Al went to work with the handlink. "Well, let's find out," he said. As Ziggy dissembled, he relayed. "Your name is Jake Rawlins. Oh, this is interesting, Sam! See Jake is usually short for Jacob, but you're just… _plain Jake!_"

He chortled happily, but Sam wasn't laughing. Al narrowed his eyes a little. "Never mind," he said, in a voice that clearly communicated that Sam was one heck of a wet blanket. He continued. "You graduated from UCSD in '65 with a BA in Criminal."

The 'link had jammed again. He smacked it. "Justice. Then you enrolled in the San Diego police academy a month later. Well, you were second in your class there. Since joining the force you've received two commendations. The first of which was you saved the life of a wounded fellow officer. You shielded him with…"

Sam was struggling with Jake Rawlins' padding-filled bra. It was Al's turn to deal out annoyance. "Just… twist that around your body if you want to get it off," he instructed. Only Sam wouldn't know how to remove a brassiere.

The time traveller gave him a blank look. "What?" he said, still struggling with the garment.

"Your brassiere," Al said, spelling things out for the genius yet again. "Just twist the catch around to the front so that you can undo it." Sam complied clumsily. Al continued. "You shielded him with your body in a shootout during an attempted armed-car robbery."

"Well, I didn't," Sam hedged. "I mean… I mean, _Jake_ did."

The fine lines of leaping weren't Al's strong point. As far as he was concerned, it was exactly what Sam would have done in the situation. More heart than brains, which considering the man's I.Q. was saying a lot. "Well, you're him now, sort of," Al reasoned.

Sam wasn't interested in hearing it. "What did Jake do wrong that I'm here to put right?" he asked, sliding his miniskirt up around his waist to reveal a crime that ought to be punished by life in prison, no parole.

Al pulled a face. "You mean _besides_ putting on your panty girdle backwards?" he asked.

Sam peered down at his abdomen. "Looks okay," he said, with the innocence of a farm boy brought up on good home cooking and solid family values.

"_Trust_ me, Sam," Al warned.

"No. I don't want to trust you," Sam argued.

"Trust me. It's backwa—"

"No—"

"It's backwards!"

"I didn't put it on anyways—"

"It's! Back! Wards!"

"Al, don't—"

"_It's on backwards_!"

"Okay," Sam said in a tone that clearly meant the party was over. "Just what am I doing in San Diego in…" He looked up expectantly.

"Sixty-nine," Al supplied. Ah, San Diego in the sixties! Calavicci's own little corner of heaven, for far too short a season. This was going to be a fun one! Al consulted the handlink again. "April First, nineteen sixt—Hey!" He grinned and waved his hand dramatically. "It's April Fool's Day!"

Suddenly his heart froze. His mind was in turmoil. April Fool's Day, 1969. Pain closed on his chest. Somehow it was all tied together. Those bank statements, the elusive Elsa, somehow it was all part of this pain. Part of this loss. The greatest single loss in a life full of bitter losses. April Fool's Day, 1969.

Suddenly he didn't care who Elsa was, if there had even ever actually been anyone named Elsa. This was April Fool's Day, 1969. Sam had leaped into San Diego on April Fool's Day, 1969. The worst day of Al's life. The day some legal nozzle had come out of nowhere and stolen away his heart. Stolen her away while he was Missing in Action on the other side of the world. Beth. San Diego. 1969. Oh, God. Oh, God. It couldn't be true—it had to be true! Why else would Sam be _here_… _now_… After all the years of loneliness, after a lifetime of unanswered prayers and unending miseries, Calavicci was finally going to get a second chance.

Sam was muttering resentfully, wrestling with the lacy stockings. Al tapped at the link. The numbers weren't good… he didn't give a damn about the numbers! She was here! His Beth! She was here, and Sam was here, and he was going to get a second chance! Another shot at happiness! An opportunity to mend that greatest of wrongs in his own life! Why else could Sam be here?

The pain that came with the influx of memories and the desperate hope that a lifetime of experience was telling him not to feel was almost too much to be borne. It was certainly too much to hide. Sam looked up from his grumbling, his face suddenly blanching with concern.

"What's wrong?" he asked somberly.

Al stared at the handlink. There, in glowing neon, was her name. Beth. Beth Calavicci. His love. His angel. His reason for living. His _only_ reason for surviving Hell itself.

And she could be his again. Sam was here to make sure she waited for him. Sam was here to make sure Beth was his again.

Al's throat closed with the overwhelming flood of jumbled emotions that seized him.

"Sam…" he said hoarsely. Even after all these years, it still hurt to admit that this had happened. The pain was as fresh as if he'd been returned Stateside yesterday, instead of twenty-five years ago.

"You're here to stop a woman from…"

He glanced up at Sam, his heart beating frantically to the rhythm of a prayer of sheer desperation. _Oh, Beth! Oh, Beth! Please, God, let this be our second chance!_

"…making the mistake of her lifetime."

FINIS


End file.
